24th June, 2019
The Nigerian presidency has praised what it called the ‘landmark ruling’, by the Presidential Election Tribunal, which rejected unanimously a request by Atiku Abubakar and the PDP to inspect the INEC server.
Presidential aide Garba Shehu described the PDP bid “a desperate attempt by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to overreach judicial process”.
“An attempt to cause the determination of an issue that constitutes the fulcrum of contention between the parties, at an interlocutory stage, has again been rejected by the tribunal”, he noted.
“What this means is that Justice and fair hearing through due contest by the parties of a major issue for determination remains sacrosanct and remains considerable by the tribunal upon according parties just and fair hearing and not the other way round.
“The election petitions tribunal unanimously rejected the PDP’s request to inspect a server which existence is being disputed.
“The existence of a purported server is being contested and if a purported inspection had been allowed at this stage, it would have amounted to the determination that it indeed existed even when its existence is being contested.
“The electoral law prescribes manual transmission of results only and this was what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did, in obedience to the law as witnessed by real electoral observers.
“YIAGA Africa deployed 3906 real individuals to run a parallel tabulation which returned the same results the INEC announced.
“Last week, the final reports of the International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute (IRI/NDI) electoral observer mission made clear that the results of the election reflected the votes cast.
“President Muhammadu Buhari won with a majority of four million votes and because only real votes matter, INEC announced him as the winner of the 2019 presidential election”.