Presidential candidates from 60 political parties under the aegis Joint Forum of Presidential candidates, on Tuesday, faulted the claim by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, that an electronic server was used by INEC during the 2019 presidential election.

They disclosed that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, informed political parties involved in the 2019 elections that it will not transmit results electronically because there was no legal instrument backing such.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, chairman of the forum, Shittu Muhammed, admonished PDP to stop heating up the polity with the server controversy, describing the claim by PDP and Atiku as unnecessary and a deliberate ploy to destroy the integrity of the nation’s electoral process.

He said: “The needless controversy over the INEC Server would have been lawful as it would have been mandatory for the Commission to deploy the server. We are aware that INEC had run pilots on electronic transmission of results. It had informed us that these pilots were deployed in Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun Governorship elections.

“However, INEC informed all political parties in the election following the withholding of assent by the President that it would not deploy the electronic transmission of results since it would not be lawful to do so.

“We must inform Nigerians now that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was represented in those meetings and we do not know why they are heating up the polity with the server story.

“This INEC Server controversy is a deliberate ploy to destroy the integrity of our electoral process. Can the so-called results from the server be referred to as credible where INEC could not have legitimately transmitted results of the Presidential or any of the other elections electronically?”

Following the commencement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting, PDP has continued to insist that it won the presidential election transmitted into the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, server during the recent poll.

Just yesterday, the tribunal had rejected Atiku’s application to inspect the alleged server used by the INEC, during the last presidential election.

Justice Mohammed Garba, Chairman of the panel had held that granting such application at this interlocutory stage would pre-empt the substantive petition.