The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) inthe February 25 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, says, there was no technical glitch on the election day as claimed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), rather, there was a deliberate bypass of the technology in order to create room for the manipulation that eventually took place.
While adopting their final written address, Atiku and PDP, through their legal team led by Chief Chris Uche urged the the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to be the first to nullify a presidential election in Nigeria.
Atiku maintained that INEC’s failure to upload results of the election in real-time to its Result Viewing (IReV) portal created room for manipulation of the final outcome of the poll.
He said: “On the issue of transmission of election results based on new provisions in the Electoral Act, we are all in agreement, including the INEC, that there is a new regime in election management.
“The essence of the innovation was to enhance transparency in the collation of results, which was an area that we usually had problems and not the actual election, and secondly, to enhance the integrity of result declared.
“We agree that INEC had an option and we brought a video evidence by INEC Chairman showing that the electoral body indeed chose an option. It is our contention and it is here in evidence that witnesses admitted that results from the National Assembly election were transmitted, but that of the presidential election was not. Over N355 billion was deployed for the election, therefore, INEC owe this court and the nation an explanation.
“It is our submission that there was no technical glitch on the election day, rather, there was a deliberate bypass of the technology in order to create room for the manipulation that eventually took place. Until the court makes a judicial pronouncement, there may not be compliance to express provisions of the new regime of the Electoral Act.
“My Lords, in a situation like this, the burden shifts on INEC to explain. It is not on the petitioner to explain why there was such technical glitch. We urge this court to hold that there was a deliberate non-compliance. The substantiality of the non-compliance lies on the national spread of the non transmission of results. It was national and not limited to certain polling units.”
Responding, the All Progressives Congress (APC) represented by Lateef Fagbemi prayed the court to dismiss the petition for want of merit.
Also, INEC in its submission prayed the court to dismiss the petition as grossly lacking in merit.
Lead counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, maintained that the presidential election was not only validly conducted but done in substantial compliance with all the relevant laws.
Likewise, President Tinubu’s team led by Chief Wole Olanipekun argued that the petitioners failed to establish why the presidential election should be nullified.
After listening to all the parties, the court called on citizens to put the country in their prayers ahead of its final judgment in different petitions challenging President Bola Ahmed’s electoral victory.