-August 20, 2019, news/comments
ABUJA-The Apex Court on Tuesday dashed the hope of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and People Democratic Party, on an appeal, challenging the February 23 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on the use of central INEC server. It could be recalled that few months ago, the court affirms that INEC arguments of non –existence of server is valid according to the electoral act, thereby dismissed Atiku’s appeal and hinted that he and PDP could not be allowed to have access to the central server of INEC used in the last presidential poll.
Meanwhile, the five man panel led by Justice C C Nweze, while delivering the court judgment noted “the appeal has no merit”, and dismissed it.
It could be recalled that Atiku, and its party had appealed the tribunal’s rejection of their request to access the “central server” which they alleged housed the results of the poll electronically transmitted by the Independent National Electoral Commission during the exercise.
He had approached the apex court to set aside the June 24, decision of the tribunal, and also grant all their prayers contained in the motion on notice. Atiku’s counsel, Eyitayo Jegede SAN had pleaded with the court to set aside the decision of the presidential election petition tribunal which refused to compel INEC to allow him access to the central server alleged used in the conduct of the presidential poll. He said that access to the INEC’s central server is Germain to the joint petition of Atiku and PDP and urged the court to grant the request of the appellants by ordering the electoral body to allow access to the database.
However, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, counsel to President Muhammadu Buhari, asked the court to turn down the request and to dismiss the appeal on the grounds that the appeal has become academic. Olanipekun drew the attention of the court to the fact that the life of the appeal will expire on Aug. 21 and even if the request is granted it will serve no purpose to the two petitioners since they have long closed their cases. He further told the court that the parties will on Aug. 21 adopt their final written addresses at the tribunal after which a judgment date will be fixed.
The position of Olanipekun was however adopted by counsel to INEC, Yunus Usman SAN and that of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Charles Edosamwam. Atiku, had in their motion, which was dismissed by the tribunal, claiming that INEC electronically transmitted the results of the disputed poll to the said central server. INEC had denied the claim, insisting that it never transmitted the results of the polls to any server whatsoever, but that the results were collated and declared manually.
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