By: Ifeanyi Izeze
It all started when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)on
February 27, 2019, declared that President Mohammadu Buhari of the
AllProgressives Congress (APC) won the last presidential election with
15,191, 847votes to beat Atiku Abubakar of thePeople’s Democratic Party
(PDP) who polled 11, 262, 978 votes.
Both Atiku and the PDP in their 139-page petition to the Tribunal
tochallenge Buhari’s declared victory claimed that “from the data in the
1strespondent’s (INEC’s) server…the true, actual and correct results from
state tostate computation” showed that Atiku polled a total of 18,356,732
votes todefeat Buhari who scored 16, 741, 430 votes.
In a swift response to the PDP claims, Festus Keyamo, the APCspokesperson
said “The law or the Electoral Act does not allow you to bring(transmit)
results by server. No room for electronic transmission at all. Allresults
were collated and transmitted manually.”
This same APCand its mouthpiece, Keyamo in less than 24 hours made a
complete u-turn andinstead turned around to accuse Atiku and PDP of
illegal access through hacking to the INEC backend database server. Trueto
the threat of bringing in the security agencies, a petition was submitted
tothe Nigerian Police and the DSS by the APC asking for the outright
arrest ofunspecified PDP leaders.
Now, does itoccur to APC that their response thus far, obviously gives the
impression of apanicky bunch? If the result shown by PDP is fake, why
border as you areconvinced INEC will not post fake election results on its
backend database.
The real issueis not having direct electronic access to INEC’s server. You
can know whatshould be in there, if you know what was fed in there. Don’t
forget also thatelection results are not secret documents; it is in the
hands of party agents. SupposingPDP and its leaders have the collated
results State by State, that was fed intothe server? If the actual total
differs from what INEC announced, shouldanybody sit down and still argue
that the electoral umpire does not have someserious questions to answer?
Just see howthis Keyamo guy has been beating about the bush! He claimed
that the PDP hackedINEC’s server, and then in the other breath, he posited
that the products ofthe hacking returned fake results! If the product of
the hacking, as he claims,is fake, then why is Keyamo getting overly
worried and thrashing like fish outof water? You have already claimed that
the product of the hacking will not beadmissible in court. So why not sit
back and watch how the court will handlethis.
Okay, rememberthat products of hacking have materials that worked against
Hillary Clinton andcould even result in indicting her in a court of law
should interested partiestake her to court. Place that scenario
side-by-side with what is agitatingKeyamo’s mind in this allegedly hacked
materials and you will see and understandwhy the APC/Keyamo has become so
worried about this development.
You may claimthat the means of obtaining information is ‘illegal’ but you
cannot justdiscard the information so gathered. So if you claim that the
PDP got what youmight call ‘classified’ information illegally, know that
such ‘classified’information, could contain information regarding the
‘illegality’ the INEC andthe APC produced and dished to the Nigerian
people. And, from the contents seenso far, it could be well concluded that
the INEC and APC conspired (anillegality) to cheat the PDP of its merited
win in that presidential election.And this is Keyamo’s worry for sure!
Nigerians areyet to hear INEC say its backend data server was breached.
So, where is APCgetting their facts from or is the INEC computer server
located in Buhari’s orKeyamo’s bedroom or inside the Presidential Villa?
Is APC now responsible foroverseeing the INEC backend database server?
Keyamo hasdeliberately been jumping the gun and this is very unbecoming of
a senioradvocate of Nigeria. The Police or DSS cannot act on evidence
before the courtwithout being directed by the court. Keyamo is a SAN and
he should have knownbetter.
The serverresults were addressed to the Tribunal and not to APC or Buhari
campaign group.He should allow the Tribunal handle the case without
interference. Actually, heshould be arrested for contempt of court for
commenting on a case and databefore the Tribunal. It is the responsibility
of the Tribunal to scrutinize thesubmitted data, and if need be as to its
source and genuineness. Did the courtnot give the complainants permission
to examine everything used for theelection? So, why is Keyamo/APC afraid?
Keyamo should notwaste his time making ridiculous claims that expose his
ignorance of systems/datasecurity. It is easy to determine whether the
presidential election data on theINEC server were inputted by intruders or
were inputted by INEC officials asreceived from the almost 120,000 polling
units across Nigeria. Blaming PDP andAtiku is nothing but an outright
expression of disabled mindsets.
As said by awell ‘learned’ Nigerian, “It is even more appalling that
Festus Keyamo, aSenior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and a member of Buhari’s
legal team, whoshould know better, would engage in this act of subjudice
designed to distort facts already known to Nigerians,that results
announced does not tally with the actual cast at the presidentialpoll.
It should occurto Keyamo that the claims by his APC are an attempt
at blackmailingthe Tribunal by engaging in clear acts ofsubjudice.
Now, for election APC claimed they won, they ought to have filed
theirdefence at the Tribunal and be eager to defend it but up till now,
that has notbeen done. Why are they more concerned with the hacking of
INEC server andsource (s) of figures pbeing presented by the opposition
rather than going tothe tribunal to submit and defend their evidence of
winning the election?
Is APC the bodythat conducted the election or were they the ones that
announced the results?It should be INEC to raise such concerns because
they alone know how secretiveor open they made available the
information. They are to defend the figures which they announced and how
they got it.All we have been hearing had been INEC servers not APC
servers, so shouldn’t theINEC be the one reporting PDP if the agency
suspects any breach of its datasecurity?
Wide and far,we’ve never seen a government in Nigeria that is lacking
intelligence andcoherence like this one. These people don’t know that
Atiku/PDP claiming tohave access to contents similar to server details
must not mean they hackedinto it. The materials fed into the INEC server,
do they exist anywhere? Yesthey do in hard copies! The easiest claim by
the PDP is simply to present eitherthe hard copies of the materials and/or
ask INEC to explain to the Tribunal howit got the figures of the election
results it announced and the ones fed into itsbackend database. At that
moment, thenaivety of Keyamo and his APC will be blown open for ridicule.
God bless Nigeria!!
IFEANYI IZEZE: 234-8033043009; iizeze@yahoo.com