Nigeria’s former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the last election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar says there is no cause for alarm over the Supreme Court’s ruling dismissing his claims to inspect the INEC server.
Atiku, who addressed a news conference through his lead counsel, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, after Tuesday’s proceedings, said that the decision was anticipated and that a proactive action had been taken during the hearing of the petition.
According to Jegede: “There is no cause for alarm in the decision of the apex court as it relates to our petition at the tribunal.
“The issue of the server was aimed at establishing that the election was rigged during the collation of results and this was thoroughly addressed through witnesses and documents tendered and admitted during the presentation of the petition.”
He expressed optimism that the tribunal would do justice at the end of the day.
Atiku had approached the Supreme Court praying for an order to set aside the decision of the tribunal which refused to compel INEC to allow him access to the central server allegedly used in the conduct of the presidential poll.
He and his party, the PDP had alleged that the “server” housed the results of the poll electronically transmitted by the Independent National Electoral Commission during the exercise.
Moving the motion for the inspection of INEC server and other electoral materials, a lead counsel to Atiku and the PDP, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), said the request was essential to their petition challenging the declaration of President Buhari as the winner of the election.
Atiku and PDP had stated in their petitions that the figures obtained from INEC’s server showed they won the presidential election against President Muhammadu Buhari and the third respondent, All Progressives Congress (APC).
Based on the figures allegedly obtained from the server, Atiku said he scored 18,356,732 votes as against those of Buhari, who he said polled 16,741,430 votes.
INEC had denied the claim, insisting that it never transmitted the results of the polls through any server whatsoever, but that the results were collated and declared manually.
President Buhari and his All Progressives Congress, whose victory at the polls is being challenged by the petitioners at the tribunal, also opposed the petitioners’ request for access to the said INEC’s server.
The tribunal had on June 24, in a ruling, dismissed PDP and Atiku’s claim that INEC electronically transmitted the results of the February, 23 polls to the said central server. But Atiku and his party proceeded to appeal the tribunal’s ruling.
The apex court, also held that the Atiku and the PDP do not have a reply to an application filed on May 14, 2019 by the All Progressives Congress (APC) seeking among others, the dismissal of their (Atiku and the PDP) challenging President Buhari’s victory at the last presidential election.
A five-man panel led by Justice Datijo Mohammed, had struck out the appeal for having become statute-barred.
NAN/The Guardian
