The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that
the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019
presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, fabricated the votes he claimed
to have scored.
Atiku, in his petition before the presidential election tribunal, had
claimed he defeated President Muhammadu Buhari by 1,615,302 votes.
He said data from INEC server showed that he polled a total of
18,356,732 votes to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he said had
16,741,430 votes.
However, INEC’s polling figures from the 36 states and the FCT gave
Buhari 15,191,847 votes, while Atiku came second with 11,262,978 votes.
In its response as the first respondent in the case, INEC disowned the figures from Atiku.
On page eight of its 80-page reply seen by TheCable, INEC said:
“Further to the foregoing, the website described as
www.factsdontlieng.com was neither created nor owned by the 1st
Respondent (INEC). It is a site not known to the 1st Respondent.
“The 1st Respondent does not share information with such an
unclassified entity and any information purportedly derived therefrom
which does not accord with the result as declared by the 1st Respondent
is not authentic but rather was invented for the purpose of this case.”
INEC also insisted it did not transmit results electronically,
thereby rejecting Atiku’s claims that the figures were derived from its
server.
It said: “The 1st Respondent (INEC) did not adopt electronic
transmission or collation of results in the conduct of the election,
voting by electronic means not having been adopted as a provision of the
Electoral Act. The 1st Respondent specifically denies the existence of
electronic transmission of results as it is unknown to the Electoral
Act, 2010 (as amended) and Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of
the elections, 2019, and put the Petitioners to the strictest of proof
thereof.”
