An unconfirmed document obtained by Starnews has revealed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) budgeted the sum of 5.7 billion naira for nation wide replacement of servers, e-collation, upgrade of server version and for National Data centre.
The unconfirmed document sighted by Starnews revealed that the electoral body budgeted #5,767,642,580.00 for E-tracking and E-collation while the breakdown shows that 1,157,850,000 was proposed for replacement of servers for 25 States, #99,750,000 for upgrade of server version of open VR for compatibility with new dell server.
Starnews reports that INEC had denied the existence of such server in its reply filed on April 10, 2019 to oppose Atiku and the PDP’s petition pending before the five-man Presidential Election Petitions tribunal.
The Electoral body on Thursday insisted and restated that it had no electronic server being sought to be accessed and inspected by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate in the February 23, 2019 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The petitioners ( Atiku and PDP) are by their petition challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress at the presidential election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
PDP and its candidate Atiku filed an application before the Tribunal seeking access to inspect the server and data of smart card reader used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the conduct of the presidential election.
Responding to the application, counsel to INEC, Mr. Yunus Usman asked the tribunal to refuse the request of the petitioners, insisting that INEC did not have a server and cannot be forced to produce what they did not have.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) through its counsel, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi aligned himself in asking the tribunal to dismiss the application of the PDP. He also argued that the electoral body has no server sought to be inspected by the PDP.
The presidential election petitions tribunal has reserved ruling in the application filed by the PDP and its presidential candidate requesting the court to grant permission for them to have access and inspect the server and data of smart card reader used by INEC in the last election.
The chairman of the panel, Justice Mohammed Garba, reserved ruling in the application shortly after counsels in the case argued their briefs in the suit.
The Tribunal has adjourned to June 24, for the continuation of the pre-trial hearing.
See the yet-to-be confirmed document below:
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