The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Thursday stated that it has always had servers through which election results were transmitted.
The commission explained that it was, however, opposed the deployment of a server in the post 2019 presidential election litigation because the petitioners at tribunal had argued for the existence of a specific server
INEC made the clarification Thursday at a two-day capacity building workshop themed “Peace Journalism/Conflict Sensitive and Election Reporting” in Abuja.
The server allegation
Challenging the outcome of the February 23, 2019 presidential election won by Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), claimed data from INEC’s server showed he actually polled a total of 18,356,732 votes to defeat Buhari, who had 16,741,430 votes.
Following the claim, former Vice President Abubakar rejected the result declared by INEC from the 36 states and the FCT in which Buhari polled 15,191,847, while Atiku came second with 11,262,978 votes.
Speaking through their legal team led by Levy Uzoukwu, the duo of PDP and Abubakar asked the tribunal to compel INEC to grant them access to the server and smart card readers used in the conduct of the election.
But their application was denied with the tribunal saying it could not grant such until it ruled on whether or not INEC had a server.
The legal battle ran a full course up to the Supreme Court which aligned its ruling with that of the tribunal.
INEC explains
And four years after, INEC threw more light on why it insisted there was no sever.
Speaking to journalists at the workshop, INEC’s Director of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Engineer Paul Mokore said the commission denied the existence of server in the 2019 Election Petition Tribunal because the lawyers that took the matter to the tribunal insisted INEC deployed a specific server.
“This issue of server has been coming up, and as far as INEC is concerned, we have been trying our best to throw light on the issue. Now in 2019, there was a lawyer, the people who took that case to the tribunal had insisted on specific, specific server. They mentioned the server type; they mentioned the IP of that server. They mentioned everything, everything concerning the server they took to the tribunal.
“Now what INEC chairman could say at that point was that we don’t have such server because you went to the tribunal with a specific IP address of the server, the type of server, the name of server, everything about the server was taken to the tribunal and because the lawyer representing INEC at that time was also wise, he told the tribunal that INEC does not have such server. What we have always said is that we don’t have such server.
“Even at that, in 2019, we did not do electronic transmission of results. If we could even say that ‘we didn’t have server then,’ in quote, can’t we have it now that we are going to do electronic transmission of results?
“We have always had servers but not that server that was taken to the tribunal. We don’t have such server. Such server is not in INEC, we don’t have it,” he stressed.
