The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, and his party has threatened to pursue the imprisonment of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, by filing contempt of court proceedings following INEC’s alleged refusal to allow access to electoral materials used in the conduct of the 2019 election, as ordered by the Court of Appeal. Huhuonline.com learnt from PDP sources that, Atiku who has also accused the electoral umpire of bias and malicious lies-telling is likely to file the contempt charges next week against INEC and its chairman; jointly and severally.
“They [INEC] have refused to cooperate with the Atiku legal team by making accessible to them ballot papers, electoral materials and other devices used during the election, which the Court of Appeal, Abuja ordered them to give to Atiku nearly two months ago. “They have bluntly refused to do this. Every day we send lawyers there, they would not cooperate. “If that be the case, they will likely force the Atiku legal team to issue forms 48 and 49 against INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to be imprisoned for contempt of court because that is the only weapon in the hands of a person who had secured the order of a court, which is being violated with impunity just as INEC is currently doing,” noted Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN); a member of Atiku’s legal team.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja had on March 6 ordered INEC to allow Atiku and his party to inspect and obtain Certified True Copy (CTC) of election materials it used in the conduct of the presidential election.
The court in its ruling on an exparte motion filed by the former vice president and the PDP also ordered INEC to make available all documents and electoral materials used for the election for the purpose of the inspection. However, nearly two months after the order was made, INEC was yet to comply with the court order leaving the Atiku legal team, no choice but to seek the committal of Yakubu to prison for alleged disobedience of a valid court order. Ozekhome said rather than maintain its expected role of an independent and impartial umpire, INEC has descended into the political arena, taking sides by “carrying respondent briefs and sharing issues with petitioners,” saying, “this automatically means it has taken sides with one of the parties.”
The senior lawyer further berated the commission for spreading falsehood by denying the presence of a central server at the commission where results from polling units were transmitted to. “INEC had before, during and after the election maintained that they have a central server, which results from polling units will be transmitted electronically. It is on you-tube, online videos, newspapers, social media and others, yet the same INEC is suddenly filing a reply denying this thing,” he said.
In a related development, the PDP said the reaction of the presidency to a video of an interview granted by a top official of INEC, confirming the existence of a central election results transmission server in the commission, has further shown that President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are jittery over the petition of its candidate at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
The party in a statement issued yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that the presidency’s feverish attempt to divert public attention by engaging in judicial interpretations and hauling insults on PDP and its candidate, Abubakar, over determination to retrieve the party’s stolen mandate in the court, would fail. The party’s spokesperson said that the PDP and its candidate are full of respect for the court and would never join Buhari’s team in engaging in actions that tend to undermine the independence and sanctity of the judiciary.
Ologbondiyan said that the interview, which has already gone viral, speaks volumes about the reported denial by INEC of the existence of such a server for the 2019 general election as well as the frenzy by President Muhammadu Buhari’s team to distract the Presidential election petitions tribunal by externalizing its proceedings.
The party said it stands firmly with Nigerians in its determination to retrieve its stolen mandate in the court, saying no amount of shenanigans by the APC and the Buhari team will distract its members or detract from the resolve of Nigerians in their expectation of the triumph of their will at the tribunal.
But the spokesman of the Buhari Presidential Campaign Council of the APC, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN), has said the video circulating on the social media purportedly showing how the February 23, 2019 presidential election was rigged, are of no effect as the election tribunal would be guided by the provisions of the Electoral Act and INEC guidelines.
Apparently rattled by the negative impact of the videos circulating on the social media showing how the Feb 23, 2019 presidential election was rigged, Keyamo, who was Director, Strategic Communications of the Buhari 2019 presidential campaign, took to his Twitter handle @fkeyamo, to warn that whatever video or evidence there were, they could not withstand the provisions of the Electoral Act or those on INEC guidelines.
Keyamo tweeted: “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 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.
Atiku had claimed to be in possession of documents proving that he won the presidential election overwhelmingly with 1.6 million votes. The PDP and Atiku then filed a petition on March 20, to challenge President Buhari’s re-election, with APC and INEC as co-respondents. In their petition to the tribunal, PDP and Atiku deposed that some ad hoc staff and other INEC officials, relying on the training and instruction by the first respondent (INEC), transmitted the scores they got from the polling units to INEC server. Atiku and PDP went on to list 13 ad hoc staff of INEC who all testified that they, indeed, uploaded results from their polling units to the INEC server as instructed during their training. Atiku had also insisted that the results he allegedly obtained from the INEC server were neither false, nor contrived, nor concocted.
But in a series of tweets yesterday, Keyamo argued that: “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!”
