Keyamo suggests Atiku, PDP are the real cheats in 2019 election

The director, strategic communications of President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2019 presidential campaign, Festus Keyamo, has asked Nigerians not to be deceived by any video on social media alleging how 2019 presidential election was rigged.

Though Keyamo did not mention any name, he however suggested that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, were ‘real cheats’ during the election, but are now ironically going around using video and other claims to create a narrative that they were cheated.

Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, stated this in a series of tweets on his official Twitter handle on Thursday.

He wrote, “Without referring to any particular pending Election Petition, there’s a need to generally guide Nigerians not to gullibly fall for the fantasy created by any video circulating where INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) official(s) spoke of INEC’s plan to electronically transmit results before the elections.

“The video(s) of some INEC official(s) expressing intention to electronically transmit results are only circulated for entertainment. That procedure is neither contained in the Electoral Act nor in INEC’s Guidelines. Courts are only guided by these documents and not such videos.

“Also, what you plan to do may be different from what you actually did. Assuming INEC planned to transmit electronically, the moment it said after the election that it did not do so, the matter ends there, especially as the Electoral Act and the guidelines do not allow it to do so.

“In anticipation of the electronic transmission, some crooks concocted fictitious results and perhaps in connivance with certain INEC insiders (or by hacking) tried to upload those results into the server. The fact that electronic transmission didn’t happen destroyed their plan

“The irony is that the real cheats are the ones struggling to create a narrative that they were cheated; the real crooks are the ones struggling to convince everyone that the system is crooked; those who actually planned to steal the people’s mandate are the ones crying foul.

“The noise about electronic transmission of INEC results is akin to a student who wants to cheat in an exam and enters the hall with prepared answers, not noticing that the set questions are not exactly framed as expected.

“So, when he’s later told he failed, he says it’s impossible!”

Keyamo’s tweets followed a trending video on social media showing how the February 23, 2019 presidential election was allegedly rigged.

Recall that PDP and Atiku are challenging INEC’s declaration of President Buhari, who was the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the presidential election in court.

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Contrary to INEC’s announcement that Buhari used 15,191,847 votes to defeat Atiku, who it said got 11,262,978 votes, Atiku claimed that some results allegedly obtained from the INEC server showed that he actually scored a total of 18,356,732 votes, and Buhari 16,741,430 votes.

INEC had since denied that the result of the election was transmitted through its server.

However, PDP and Atiku have continued to insist that they are in possession of certain documents proving that he won the presidential election overwhelmingly with 1.6 million votes.

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