Tribunal Didn’t Reject My Request To Inspect INEC’s Server...Atiku Abubakar

Just when it seemed it had sunk finally, the INEC’s server controversy trailing the 2019 presidential election bobbed up again yesterday with the major contender, Atiku Abubakar, insisting the Presidential Election Tribunal did not reject his request to inspect the electronic data facility.

“What the honourable tribunal said is that it is still at preliminary stages and the main case has not begun, and that the matter of granting access to inspect the INEC server is not relevant to the preliminary stages. It is a matter to be adjudicated upon when the case proper is being heard,” declared a statement by Atiku’s media aide, Paul Ibe.

Atiku therefore warned that the “celebration by the administration of General Buhari that their electoral heist has been covered is premature. Their giddiness has even blinded them to the eyewitness testimony given to multiple media in interviews by staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission that there is indeed a server and that they actually submitted results and accreditation through it.”

The clarification came in a reaction to an earlier statement “from Aso Rock Villa, wherein spokesperson for General Muhammadu Buhari praised the ruling of the Presidential Election Tribunal, which ‘rejected’ the request by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, and the Peoples Democratic Party, to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission to grant access to their server used for the 2019 presidential election.

“After praising the so-called ‘landmark ruling’, the statement went on to claim that ‘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’.”

Atiku however said: “In their rush to claim a Pyrrhic victory, the General Buhari administration missed out the fact that the 2019 budget has multiple line items for procurement, maintenance and service of the server they claim does not exist.”

Noting that “the last has not been heard” on the matter, the presidential candidate said he was “eagerly” anticipating the “actual ruling of the tribunal when the case proper begins.”

He therefore concluded by reminding “those who are gloating in their ignorance” that he laughs best who laughs last.