Politics
Atiku to call Microsoft, IBM experts as witnesses, gives ‘details’ of INEC servers
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the last election , Atiku Abubakar , is set to call Microsoft , IBM and Oracle experts to authenticate his claim that the servers belonging to the Independent National Electoral Commission showed that he defeated President Muhammadu Buhari by over 1 . 6 million votes .
Atiku also identified the server where the results are kept as INEC _ PRES _ RSLT _ SRV2019 and its unique Mac address as 94 – 57 – A 5 – DC – 64 – B 9 with Microsoft Product ID 00252 – 70000 – 0000 -AA535.
The PDP candidate said this in fresh response to the reply of INEC to his petition .
Atiku and the PDP will also be expected to tender INEC ’ s training manual on elections , a printout of the votes of candidates from smart card readers and a printout of the forensic audit report on INEC ’ s server as evidence .
The former Vice – President and the PDP claimed to have polled a total of 18 , 356, 732 votes to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress who he said scored 16 , 741, 430 votes .
However , INEC ’ s Director , Information and Communications Technology , Mr Chidi Nwafor , in his witness statement on oath attached to the reply, specifically denied the “ server results ” which the PDP and Atiku were laying claim to .
He said all the results were collated manually and were never transmitted electronically .
Atiku, in his fresh response , said the figures he claimed to have scored were genuine .
The reply read in part , “ The servers from which the said figures were derived belong to the 1 st respondent ( INEC ) . The figures and votes were transmitted to the 1 st respondent ’ s Presidential result ’ s server 1 and thereafter aggregated in INEC _ PRES _ RSLT _ SRV2019 whose physical address or unique Mac address as 94 – 57 -A 5 – DC- 64 – B 9 with Microsoft Product ID 00252 – 70000 – 0000 – AA 535. The descriptions are unique to the 1 st respondent ’ s server . ”
On how the case would be argued , the PDP and Atiku stated , “ The petitioners will at the trial of this petition rely on experts on Microsoft , IBM and Oracle , amongst others . ”
The PDP candidate and his party said one of the spokespersons for the Buhari Campaign Organisation , Festus Keyamo ( SAN) , even attested to the fact that the election data was in INEC ’ s servers when he wrote a petition to the Inspector -General of Police calling on him to arrest Atiku.
The petition further stated, “ The spokesperson for the second respondent ’ s campaign organisation ( Keyamo ) openly admitted that the data in question was in the first respondent ’ s server when he wrote and submitted a petition to the IGP and the Director of the Department of State Services asking the security agencies to investigate the second petitioner ( the PDP ) for allegedly hacking into the server of the first respondent ( INEC ) and obtaining the data in question .
“ Specifically , Mr Festus Keyamo ( SAN ) claimed in the petition that it was the first petitioner ( Atiku) who smuggled the data into the server . The petitioners ( Atiku and the PDP ) hereby plead the said petition to the security agencies and the second respondent is hereby given notice to produce them at hearing . ”
The PDP and Atiku said INEC ’ s claim that the transmission of results was purely manual was a lie.
They made references to several press statements issued by INEC insisting that there would be an electronic component of results collation .
Atiku and his party said there was nothing in the Electoral Act that barred INEC from transmitting results electronically .
They said INEC also lied when it claimed that its directive on election day was that card readers should only be used in areas where they worked .
The PDP and its presidential candidate added , “ The petitioners shall at trial lead evidence to show that the first respondent ( INEC ) stated on several occasions before and after the elections that the use of card readers was compulsory . ”
The petitioners also stated that INEC through its Chairman and Returning Officer, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu , committed grave errors in the final collation of the presidential results .
The INEC boss was said to have muddled up the results , announcing the wrong figures for wrong political parties.
Atiku and his party said in the Form EC 8 E INEC falsely credited Rev . Chris Okotie ( Presidential candidate of the Fresh Democratic Party ) with a wrong political party and wrong scores and in the same vein , the INEC boss falsely credited Rev . Onwubuya Abraham ( presidential candidate of Freedom and Justice Party ) with a wrong political party and wrong scores.
The INEC chairman was also accused of falsely crediting Ojinika Chizee ( presidential candidate of the Coalition for Change) and Abah Elaigwu ( Change Advocacy Party ) with the wrong scores and wrong political parties.
Meanwhile , the PDP has come to the defence of Atiku’ s lead counsel , Dr Livy Uzoukwu ( SAN ) , whom INEC claimed was not a legal practitioner and was not licensed to practise law .
In a witness statement signed by a former Minister of Aviation , Osita Chidoka, the party said Uzoukwu was called to the bar in 1982 and was even the attorney – general of Imo State from 1994 to 1996 .
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