The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused INEC of complicity in the 2023 general election. He claimed INEC used third-party devices to intercept and switch results for the APC candidate, Bola Tinubu.
The News Chronicle earlier reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) returned Bola Ahmed Tinubu of APC as the president-elect having polled the highest number of votes cast. The election and the process of transmitting the result are however contested by both the candidate of PDP, Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party, Peter Obi.
Atiku, in a 66-page petition lodged before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, further alleged that INEC had prior to the election, redeployed its in-house ICT expert, Mr Chidi Nwafor, and replaced him with an IT Consultant that helped it install the third-party mechanism.
According to Atiku, the said IT Consultant, Mr Suleiman Farouk was who perpetrated the act in favour of the APC candidate.
“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…which was used to intercept the results, quarantine and warehouse same, and filter them before releasing same to the IReV portal,” the petition partly read.
