INEC boss committed grave errors in the final collation exercise, says PDP

The People’s Democratic Party PDP, has accused INEC boss Professor Mahmood Yakubu of “committed grave errors in the final collation exercise” for the election by “falsely crediting” some persons with political parties, including “Okotie Christopher, Reverend Dr. Onwubuya and Ojinika Jeff Chinze.”

The party made its obsercstion known,  when the PDP and its presidential candidate, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, disagreed with INEC, saying  that, the result from the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed that they defeated President Muhammadu Buhari in the February presidential election.

Vanguard has reported that, President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar at the presidential election tribunal submitted the “unique MAC address and Microsoft product ID of the INEC server” from where the results were obtained.

Abubakar and the PDP said this; “The Servers from which the said figures were derived belong to the first Respondent (INEC). The figures and votes were transmitted to the first Respondent’s Presidential Result’s Server 1 and thereafter aggregated in INEC_PRES_RSLT_SRV2019, whose Physical Address or unique Mac Address is 94-57-A5-DC-64-B9 with Microsoft Product ID 00252-7000000000-AA535. The above descriptions are unique to the 15t Respondent’s Server.

“There is no conjecture in the votes and scores in the table pleaded by the Petitioners. The figures are factual. The Spokesperson for the 2nd Respondent’s Campaign Organization openly admitted that the data in question was in the first Respondent’s Server when he wrote and submitted a petition to the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) asking the Security agencies to investigate the 2nd Petitioner herein for allegedly hacking into the Server of the 1St Respondent and obtaining the data in question.

“Specifically, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN, the Spokesperson of the 2nd Respondent claimed in the said petition that it was the first Petitioner who smuggled the data into the Server,” PDP and its presidential candidate have said.

“The grave errors referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5 above were under the hands and signature of the first Respondent’s Chairman, (who was also the Returning Officer) in the conduct of the final collation of the results of the Presidential Election.

“The Petitioners state that the final results as declared by the first respondent are those that were transmitted online to the website of the first Respondent (www inecnigeria.org),” they said.

The report had it that, PDP has expressed concern over alleged non-release of electoral materials by INEC, saying the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has cautioned INEC Chairman not to plunge the nation into a monumental crisis, by refusing to obey the Court of Appeal to release the election materials used for the conduct of the February 23, Presidential election.

This is even as the party said the umpire “by this action, is blatantly standing in the way of justice and working against the will of the people in their quest to salvage the nation and reclaim their stolen mandate at the tribunal.”

In a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party said “The continued refusal of INEC to release the electoral materials to the PDP and our legal team is completely provocative and shows that the commission is working in cahoots with the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Presidency to frustrate the PDP, our candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and majority of Nigerians from retrieving our mandate at the tribunal.”

The statement continued: “INEC and the APC are apprehensive that the materials, particularly the forms EC8D and EC40G covering the nation in addition to the report of the Smart Card Readers used in the Presidential election will show at the tribunal that the PDP and Atiku Abubakar clearly won the Presidential election.

“The PDP has been reliably informed of how the APC and some compromised top officials of INEC have been boasting that they will never allow these materials and documents to be released to the PDP legal team.

“This is the reason the APC and INEC manufactured a groundless claim that the form EC8D, EC40G and the reports of the card readers were not specifically captured in the order of the court whereas the court was unequivocal in its order that all materials used for the election be made available to our legal team.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the Court of Appeal, among other orders, directed INEC to release and allow our legal team to ‘inspect, scan, forensically audit and make copies of forms EC4OA, EC8A, EC8AVP, EC8B, EC8C, EC8E and all other electoral forms and materials including, but not limited to ballot papers and voters registers and materials used for the conduct of the presidential election, held across Nigeria on the 23rd of February, 2019, for the purpose of instituting and maintaining an election petition”. PDP has said.

“The refusal of INEC to release forms EC8D, EC40G and the reports of the card readers is therefore a deliberate and vicious disobedience to the orders of the court for which the management of INEC should be charged for contempt. “The PDP calls on Nigerians to note that INEC, having rigged the election in favour of APC, is now seeking ways to frustrate our petition at the tribunal. We therefore charge INEC, having been exposed, to end its shenanigan and release these documents without further delay,” PDP has said.

Meanwhile, the independent national electoral commission has announced the recruitment of new staff into the agency. All interested applicant should read here. inec recruitment.

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