Document reveals election results were transmitted to INEC server

By Ishaya Ibrahim

Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s aide on social media, Reno Omokri, has released a document on his Twitter handle which shows that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) transmitted the 2019 presidential and National Assembly election results to its server.

The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the election, Atiku Abubakar, had claimed that results in the server show that he defeated his opponent, President Muhammadu Buhari by a margin of more than 1.6 million votes.

INEC rejected the claim, adding that it has no such server.   

But in the presidential election tribunal, the Atiku legal team presented two witnesses who served as INEC election officials. They claimed that there was indeed a server and that results from the presidential poll were transmitted into it.

The document which Omokri released, was addressed to all the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs). It was dated March 25, 2019 and signed by INEC’s secretary, Rose Oriaran-Anthony.

In it, she highlighted the performance of the Smart Card Readers (SCRs) in the election, and pointed out that 4 per cent of the SCRs deployed for the election had no accreditation data.

“The total number of Smart Card Readers without accreditation data is 4,786, which stands at 4 per cent of the SCRs deployed for that election. Attached is the chat, showing the Polling Units not uploaded to the SCR accreditation backend for each of the states,” she said.

The word ‘backend’ connotes that Oriaran Anthony was referring to a server.  A server literally means a computer programme which manages access to a centralized resource or service.   The backend means the part of the server that is accessed by only people with privileged access.

The alleged INEC document shows Oriaran Anthony instructing the RECs to explain why those SCRs had no accreditation data and result.

“You are please requested to liaise with your HOD Electoral Operations and Electoral Officers to provide comment beside each Polling Unit, stating why there are no accreditation data. The comment should reflect what happened to the SCR or the results of the PU covering cases where election did not hold, cancellation of Polling Unit result, stolen or destroyed SCRs etc. This should be submitted in both soft and hard copies, latest Thursday, March 28^th 2019,” she said.

 The INEC has so far not reacted to the document.