IN THE NEWS: INEC’s claim of not having a place for storage of data, laughable —PDP
……..PDP’s lead counsel, Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, urged the tribunal to hold that they successfully made out a case to warrant Buhari’s sack, stressing that it was absurd for INEC to claim that it does not have an electronic storage device it kept data from the last presidential election.
Uzoukwu said: “Where was INEC storing the data from accreditation and verification? Again, where are they storing data from PVCs running into millions? That is the server.
“To, therefore, claim that INEC does not have a place for storage of data is laughable and tragic. This goes against the claim and trumpeted neutrality of INEC.”
He argued that though Buhari claimed that he had three certificates, he failed to tender any of them, adding that both his witness and the secretary of the military board denied that his set in the Army was asked to surrender their certificates for safekeeping.
He said: “He could go to Cambridge to collect a certificate but could not ask the military secretary to produce his WAEC certificate.
“As it stands, there is no original certificate, no Certified True Copy, no photocopy, no electronic version of it or even photographs of the certificate.
“And again, according to them, no server. Everything they don’t have. The 3rd respondent had no defence. The 1st respondent had no defence, no witnesses.
“I, therefore, must respectfully urge my lords to grant our reliefs because we have proved our case.”
On his part, Yunus Usman, counsel to INEC, said the claim that results of the presidential election were transmitted to a server remained “the greatest lie of this century.”
While adopting his final address at the tribunal, yesterday, Usman said the Electoral Act prohibited the transmission of results electronically.
Explaining that the Act only provided for the manual transmission of results, INEC’s counsel said: “We humbly submit that INEC conducted the presidential election on February 23, 2019, in compliance with the Electoral Act and the petitioners can never disown that.
“The issues of transmitting results electronically or through server has been the greatest lie of this century because my lords, they say the results transmitted were only Atiku and Buhari, whereas about 70 political parties participated in the election.
“The Act itself prohibits the transmission of election results electronically. The Act and the manual only provide for manual transmission and collation of elections results and that is what they did and that is what their witness admitted under cross-examination.”
He also asked the tribunal, led by Mohammed Garba to dismiss the petition, which he said was meant to “test waters.”
• Election tribunal reserves judgement
Meanwhile, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja has reserved its judgement on the petition seeking to nullify President Buhari’s re-election.
A five-man panel of Justices of the Court of Appeal, which heard the petition PDP, and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, lodged to challenge the outcome of the February 23 presidential election, adjourned for judgement after all the parties adopted their final briefs of argument.
The Justice Mohammed Garba-led panel said it would deliver the judgement on a date to be sent to all the parties through their lawyers.
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