Former chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has denied making a statement on the existence of a server during his time as head of the Commission. Prof. Jega, in a circulated comment on social media, was quoted as saying the INEC server existed and is ‘functional,’ even in his own time.
But in a text message to onoline paper, Premium Times, through an associate, Prof. Jega denied making the statement, describing it as ‘reckless.’
He noted that the Commission under his watch did not, at any time, transmit results electronically.
“This is another lie mischievously attributed to me. I never said this. Besides, INEC during my time did not do electronic transmission of results. Under our current electoral laws, it is illegal to do so.
“I am at a loss as to why some reckless people go the extra mile to attribute things to me, which I have never said. I have never said this. It is a repugnant lie,” the text message read.
However, despite Prof. Jega’s denial, controversies about INEC server continues to dominate public discourse.
INEC however insists that it did not use electronic transmission of results for the 2019 general election, citing late release of the commission’s 2019 budget.
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Solomon Soyebi, a national commissioner of INEC on Monday, June 17, said contrary to speculations in the polity, the commission did not transmit results of the 2019 presidential elections electronically to its server.
He, however, said INEC experimented the use of electronic transmission of results with Anambra, Sokoto and Osun elections held before 2019 elections, stressing that the technology was not deployed during the 2019 general elections.
His words: “We piloted the use of transmission of election results electronically in Sokoto, in Anambra, even in Osun.
“What happened was that we were trying to pilot to see the desirability of such technology in our electoral process.
“First, our budget came out very late, there was also an issue of the Electoral Act. For these and some other reasons, the commission did not adopt that option. 2019 elections were conducted according to law.”