INEC maintains no server narrative, blames Buhari for failure

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has gone beyond claiming that it never used a sever for the 2019 general elections, to giving reasons, why, after giving Nigerians an impression it was going to use it for the poll, it failed to do so.

According to the electoral body, use of sever to electronically transmit results was experimented in earlier elections held in Anambra, Sokoto and Osun, but was dropped during the general elections because President Muhammadu Buhari-led government sent it the budget for the election very late.

Osun State INEC National Commissioner, Solomon Soyebi, gave this explanation on Monday at the post-election review meeting held at the commission’s office in Osogbo, the Osun State capital.

He said, “We piloted the use of transmission of election results electronically in Sokoto, in Anambra, even in Osun. What happened was that we were trying to pilot to see the desirability of such technology in our electoral process.

“Once in a while, you will see an experiment going on but we have to pilot it before we will deploy wholesale for election. We did not use it because of circumstances beyond the control of the commission.”

He listed circumstances beyond its control to include “First, our budget came out very late. There was also (an) issue (with) the Electoral Act. For these and some other reasons, the commission did not adopt that option; 2019 elections were conducted according to the law.

“We used the Constitution of the Federal Republic, we used the Electoral Act and our guidelines for 2019 elections. If you look at the three instruments carefully, the issue of the server was not highlighted.”

READ ALSO: Despite denials, Obi insists INEC must provide server used for 2019 polls

INEC explanation on this matter followed the insistence of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, that the electoral body allow it access to results sent to its sever which showed that President Buhari won the presidential election.

Despite constant denials that it did not make use of a server in 2019, the PDP had continued to insist that INEC made use of sever and must provide it to the Presidential Election Tribunal, before which the opposition party is challenging the outcome of the 2019 presidential election.

 

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