Festus Keyamo, spokesman of the
All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign, says courts will only
deliver judgments based on the provisions of the electoral act and not videos
circulating on social media.
Keyamo was reacting to videos
where some Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) staff said the
commission planned to transmit results of the 2019 elections electronically.
Atiku Abubakar, presidential
candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had challenged the outcome of
the presidential election won by President Muhammadu Buhari before the election
tribunal.
Citing results from the server of
INEC, Atiku said he defeated Buhari with over 1.6 million votes.
But Keyamo described the videos
on INEC’s plan to transmit results to INEC server as mere entertainment.
He said while INEC may have
planned to transmit the results electronically, what matters most is if it
actually did.
“Without referring to any
particular pending Election Petition, there’s a need to generally guide
Nigerians not to gullibly fall for the fantasy created by any video circulating
where INEC official(s) spoke of INEC’s plan to electronically transmit results
before the elections,” Keyamo tweeted.
“The video(s) of some INEC
official(s) expressing intention to electronically transmit results are only
circulated for entertainment. That procedure is neither contained in the
Electoral Act nor in INEC’s Guidelines. Courts are only guided by these
documents and not such videos.
“Also, what you plan to do may be
different from what you ACTUALLY DID. Assuming INEC planned to transmit
electronically, the moment it said after the election that it did not do so,
the matter ends there especially as the Electoral Act & the Guidelines do
not allow it to do so.”
Atiku and the PDP had called 13
presiding officers from Yobe and Borno states to testify before the tribunal.
The electoral officials said they uploaded results from the polling units in
their states to INEC server.
But Keyamo alleged that some
people connived with some INEC staff to upload results to the website of the
electoral body and “the fact that electronic transmission didn’t happen
destroyed their plan”.
According to to him, “those who
actually planned to steal the people’s mandate are the ones crying foul”.
“In anticipation of the
electronic transmission, some crooks concocted fictitious results and perhaps
in connivance with certain INEC insiders (or by hacking) tried to upload those
results into the server. The fact that electronic transmission didn’t happen
destroyed their plan,” he said.
“The irony is that the real cheats
are the ones struggling to create a narrative that they were cheated; the real
crooks are the ones struggling to convince everyone that the system is crooked;
those who actually planned to steal the people’s mandate are the ones crying
foul.
“The noise about electronic
transmission of INEC results is akin to a student who wants to cheat in an exam
& enters the hall with prepared answers, not noticing that the set
questions are not exactly framed as expected. So, when he’s later told he
failed, he says it’s IMPOSSIBLE!”
INEC has dismissed Atiku’s claims
as false, saying the results were fabricated but the presidential candidate has
refused to back down on his claim.
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