Former vice-president Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party have closed their cases at the Presidential Election Tribunal in Abuja, without proving the existence of an INEC server.
The closure came after the testimony of their last witness, Osita Chidoka,
a former aviation Minister, who served as the National Collation Officer for the party.
Although Chidoka claimed in his written statement, that results were transmitted electronically, he could not, under cross-examination, sustain the claim.
Chidoka could not provide the address of the said server and information about its location.
He said he got information that results were transmitted to an INEC server from a whistleblower.
Chidoka, who confirmed that results were collated from the polling unit level, through ward, state and national levels manually, admitted that what the information contained in all his statements are from the information he got from his party’s agents.
Earlier, Atiku’s ICT expert from Kenya, by name – David Ayu Nyango Njoga had said he got the INEC result for the presidential election, which he later analysed, from a third party website : “www.factdontlieng.com”.
The witness claimed that the information was provided by an INEC official, but said the INEC official acted anonymously.
When asked if the website belonged to INEC, he said a whistleblower told him so. He said the website was created on March 12, 2019, which is more than two weeks after the Presidential election date.
When reminded that the presidential election held on February 23 and the results released before March 12, the witness went mute.
The court has adjourned till July 29 for the defendants to open their defence, beginning with INEC, listed as the first defendant.
