Lai Mohammed denies saying INEC deliberately failed to upload presidential elections results’

Barely 24 hours after claiming that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deliberately failed to upload the presidential elections results in real time after it suspected cyberattacks on its IReV portal, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has denied making the claims, just as he instead blasted reports credited to him over his claims as ‘irresponsible and reckless.’

INEC has consistently maintained that it delayed uploading presidential elections results on to its IReVv portal real time following technical glitches experienced immediately after polling during the Saturday, February 25 presidential elections and was only able to restore normal electronic transmission the following day, Sunday.

According to opposition political parties in their petitions before the Presidential Elections Petitions tribunal in Abuja, the delay enabled massive rigging and other electoral malpractices by some persons which altered outcome of the polls in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

However, in a twist, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed dashed the argument long held by INEC that technical glitches prevented the electoral umpire from uploading results of the February 25 Presidential poll in real time.

Speaking in Washington DC, United States, during his official engagement with some international media organisations, Tuesday, Alhaji Mohammed who had earlier accused the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi and his running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, of inviting insurrection and treason against the Nigerian government, said INEC ‘deliberately’ failed to upload results sheets of the Presidential poll to guard against perceived hackers’ attempts at sabotaging the electoral exercise.

“Under our laws today, management of election results is manual and the court has ruled that INEC has the exclusive right to determine the mode of election, its collation, and transmission.

“What happened on the 25th of February was that INEC observed that the results of the Presidential elections were not being viewed.

“INEC, suspecting cyber-attack, withheld the uploading of the results in order to preserve the integrity of the data.

“It immediately proceeded to float an alternative platform while asking its technicians to investigate what happened to its original portal.

“Nothing gives this election more credence than those facts because there was no rigging in states where our bigwigs come from,” the minister said.

Hours after making the statement, the minister has recanted in a clarification, as he insists the fresh report ‘was a deliberate falsehood, twisted by the online platforms to serve their selfish interest.’

“This is irresponsible and reckless journalism.

“The truth of the matter is that, one of the major problems in the polity today, is a section of the media.

“These are people who cannot just belief that the Labour Party or the opposition did not win the election.

“They convinced themselves that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will lose the election.

“As a result of this there is nothing you want to say or do, they will find a way to twist it and make it what they want it to look like.

”What I said was that, during the election, there was a technical glitch and as a result of this and for INEC to protect the data, it suspended uploading of the results.

“INEC immediately set up a technical team to look into what went wrong and simultaneously floated another platform,” he said.

“Of course, Premium Times has its own agenda .

“They inserted the word “deliberately” and omitted the phrase that it was in order to protect the sanctity of the data.

“They make it to look like INEC deliberately refused to upload the results’.

It would be recalled that while explaining the commission’s inability to upload results real time to its IReV portal, INEC Commissioner and Director, Information and Voter Education Committee, had explained last February 26, a day after the election that ‘the problem is totally due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season, state elections, to one for managing nationwide general elections.’

The explanation has held since the conclusion of the polls until Mohammed added another angle to the controversy which is also before the elections petition tribunal.

“The Commission regrets this setback, especially because of the importance of IReV in our results management process.

“The problem is totally due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season, State elections, to one for managing nationwide general elections. It is indeed not unusual for glitches to occur and be corrected in such situations,” said Okoye.

The minister says the problem with the earlier reports stems from the inclusion of the word ‘deliberately’, as he restated that INEC shut down its own portal when it noticed technical glitches, a position the electoral umpire, however, said was forced on it.