The Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) says Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 presidential election, 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.
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 Atiku’s figures which the former
vice-president attributed to a website, factsdontlie.com.
The electoral body said the
results were “invented” solely for the petition.
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.”
The umpire also denied
transmitting results electronically, thereby rejecting Atiku’s claims that the
figures were derived from INEC’s serve.
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.”
INEC will be relying on 83
witnesses in its defence.
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