Supreme Court Explains Why Atiku Lost

The Supreme Court has given reasons why the Peoples Democratic Party PDP Presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, lost his appeal suit challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in last presidential election.

The apex court stressed that Atiku relied on data from dubious serve adding that, the data Atiku got from INEC’s server had a dubious origin.

According to the Supreme Court, whereas the appellants claimed that results of the presidential election were electronically transmitted to a central server by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, they however tendered before the tribunal, results they said were obtained from a website they gave its name as www.factsdontlieng.com.

In a unanimous decision, the seven-man panel of Justices of apex court panel headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Tanko Muhammad, held that the issue to be considered was not whether or not INEC had a website, but whether it was the owner of the website the appellants secured the supposed election results from.

He said “The issue in this appeal is not whether INEC has a website. It is not whether INEC posted the results of the presidential election on its website. It is whether the www.factsdontlieng.com from which the appellants downloaded the results belonged to INEC.”

The apex Court also noted that while the appellants contended that the election results, which they said were uploaded by an anonymous whistleblower, belonged to INEC, the electoral body on the other hand denied ownership of the said website.

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The court said “The burden of proof, which means adducing credible evidence in proof of facts in pleadings rests in the appellants”, the court held, saying it was satisfied that the purported electronically transmitted results that gave the appellants a victory margin of over 1.6million votes, emerged from a “doubtful and unreliable source”.