Buhari Vs Atiku: Courts Not Guided By Social Media Videos, Keyamo Tells Nigerians

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Festus Keyamo, has said that the videos of some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, expressing the intention of the commission to electronically transmit the 2019 presidential election results are only circulated for entertainment.

Keyamo, who was Director, Strategic Communications of President Buhari’s 2019 presidential campaign, said such procedure is neither contained in the Electoral Act nor in INEC’s Guidelines.

Keyamo, who took to his twitter handle to “guide Nigerians” on the issue, said the Courts are not guided by such videos.

Recall that some videos circulating the social media purportedly showed how the February 23, 2019 presidential election was rigged.

The defeated Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar had since approached the election tribunal, claiming that some results purportedly obtained from the INEC server showed that Atiku actually scored a total of 18,356,732 votes, and Buhari 16,741,430 votes, whereas, the All Progressives Congress’ Muhammadu Buhari, was declared winner by the INEC with 15,191,847 votes, as against Atiku’s 11,262,978 votes.

Keyamo said: “Without referring to any particular pending Election Petition, there’s a need to generally guide Nigerians not to gullibly fall for the fantasy created by any video circulating where INEC official(s) spoke of INEC’s plan to electronically transmit results before the elections.

“The video(s) of some INEC official(s) expressing intention to electronically transmit results are only circulated for entertainment. That procedure is neither contained in the Electoral Act nor in INEC’s Guidelines. Courts are only guided by these documents and not such videos.

“Also, what you plan to do may be different from what you actually did. Assuming INEC planned to transmit electronically, the moment it said after the election that it did not do so, the matter ends there, especially as the Electoral Act and the guidelines do not allow it to do so.

“In anticipation of the electronic transmission, some crooks concocted fictitious results and perhaps in connivance with certain INEC insiders (or by hacking) tried to upload those results into the server. The fact that electronic transmission didn’t happen destroyed their plan

“The irony is that the real cheats are the ones struggling to create a narrative that they were cheated; the real crooks are the ones struggling to convince everyone that the system is crooked; those who actually planned to steal the people’s mandate are the ones crying foul.

“The noise about electronic transmission of INEC results is akin to a student who wants to cheat in an exam and enters the hall with prepared answers, not noticing that the set questions are not exactly framed as expected.

“So, when he’s later told he failed, he says it’s impossible!”