The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of installing a third-party device to “manipulate” results of the February 25 poll in favour of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Bola Tinubu.
Atiku lodged the allegation in a 66-page document with Petition No: PEPC/A/05/2023 filed before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
Atiku and the PDP are first and second petitioners respectively while the INEC, Tinubu and the APC are first, second and third respondents respectively.
The petition partly read, “The petitioners contend and shall lead evidence to show that contrary to the original design of the BVAS machine to upload data directly to the electronic collation system and the IReV portal, the 1st Respondent contrived and installed an intervening third-party device (Device Management System) which, in its ordinary usage, is meant to secure and administer the 1st Respondent’s technological ecosystem for the elections but as it relates to the presidential election, was used to intercept the results, quarantine and warehouse same, and filter them before releasing same to the IReV portal.
“The 1st Respondent used the said Device Management System to manipulate the election results in favour of the 2nd and 3rd Respondents.”
“The petitioners state and shall lead expert evidence to show the critical components of the 1st Respondent’s Information and Communications Technology, ICT, including but not limited to the BVAS which is an Android Device manufactured by Emperor Technologies China and supplied to the 1st Respondent by Activate Nigeria Limited.”
“The Voter Accreditation System (VAS) which is the software that is used on the BVAS was previously designed and configured in-house and installed on the BVAS by the ICT Team of the 1st Respondent headed by Mr. Chidi Nwafor.
“The VAS was subsequently handed over to Emperor Technology China prior to the Presidential Election and they then preconfigured and installed the software on the BVAS before supplying the devices to the 1st Respondent through Activate Nigeria Limited.
“As it relates to the IReV, the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) is a web-based data entry and aggregation portal designed also by Chidi Nwafor’s team and is hosted on Amazon Web Service (AWS).
“The server system for the device and the portal are hosted on Amazon Web Service (AWS),” the petition added.
Tinubu, 70, came out tops in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states, and secured significant numbers in several other states to claim the highest number of votes — 8,794,726, almost two million votes more than his closest rival — former Vice President
Atiku, 76, who has now run for president six times, got 6,984,520 votes, while the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, who, in less than a year, galvanised young voters in a manner some have described as unprecedented finished the race with 6,101,533.
Both Atiku and Obi are in court to challenge the declaration of Tinubu as winner and President-Elect.