The presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, and the party have told the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal in Abuja that their victory as shown in the results from the INEC server were not concocted.

Atiku and PDP were replying to the spokesman of the APC candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, Festus Keyamo (SAN), who had described Atiku’s claim to have scored the highest votes in the February 23, 2019, presidential election based on results from the INEC server as false.

Keyamo had added that the APC had petitioned the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the State Security Service (SSS) against Atiku for “breaking or hacking into the 1st Respondent’s (INEC) server to obtain the said scores and votes.”

Replying through his team of lawyers at the tribunal led by Levi Uzoukwu (SAN), Atiku stated that the results it claimed to have obtained from the INEC server were “neither false nor contrived or concocted.

“Indeed, the ad hoc staff and officials of the 1st Respondent (INEC) in obedience to the training/instruction by the 1st Respondent transmitted the scores they got from the polling units to the 1st Respondent’s server.”

Atiku listed 13 ad hoc staff of INEC who all testified that they indeed uploaded results from polling units to the INEC server as instructed during their training.

An ad hoc staff who claimed to have worked as a presiding officer (APO1) at the Federal Polytechnic Damaturu, Yobe State, at Central Primary School Nangere Unit with Code 011, of Dawasa-Nangere, said he followed the instruction.

He said, “At the close of voting, I transmitted the result electronically to the 1st Respondent’s server using the Smart Card Reader (SCR) and the code provided by the 1st Respondent.”

INEC had announced President Buhari winner of the election with 15,191,847 votes with Atiku polling 11,262,978 votes.

However, Atiku claimed that results from the INEC server showed that he scored a total of 18,356,732 as against 16,741,430 votes by Buhari. (Daily Trust)

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