Despite claims by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that the results of the 2019 presidential election were not on its servers, Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has insisted there were results from INEC’s server showing he won in the presidential election.

Atiku, during his submission to the presidential election tribunal, gave the “unique MAC address and Microsoft product ID of the INEC server” from which the results were obtained.

In the results declared by INEC from the 36 states and the federal capital territory (FCT), Buhari polled 15,191,847, while Atiku came second with 11,262,978 votes.

Atiku, in his petition submitted at the tribunal, claimed he garnered a total of 18,356,732 votes to defeat Buhari, who, according to him, polled 16,741,430 votes.

The electoral body had in its response to the petition of the PDP and Atiku at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, stated that the result of the election was never transmitted or collated electronically, adding that the results being paraded by Atiku was fabricated and not from its website.

However, in response to INEC’s claim, Atiku and the PDP in a statement released Tuesday said the address of the server from which the results were obtained are unique to INEC.

“The Servers from which the said figures were derived belong to the first Respondent (INEC). The figures and votes were transmitted to the first Respondent’s Presidential Result’s Server 1 and thereafter aggregated in INEC_PRES_RSLT_SRV2019, whose Physical Address or unique Mac Address is 94-57-A5-DC-64-B9 with Microsoft Product ID 00252-7000000000-AA535. The above descriptions are unique to the 15t Respondent’s Server,” they said.

“There is no conjecture in the votes and scores in the table pleaded by the Petitioners. The figures are factual. The Spokesperson for the 2nd Respondent’s Campaign Organization openly admitted that the data in question was in the first Respondent’s Server when he wrote and submitted a petition to the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) asking the Security agencies to investigate the 2nd Petitioner herein for allegedly hacking into the Server of the 1St Respondent and obtaining the data in question.

“Specifically, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN, the Spokesperson of the 2nd Respondent claimed in the said petition that it was the first Petitioner who smuggled the data into the Server,” PDP added.

Atiku and the PDP also alleged that the INEC chairman “committed grave errors in the final collation exercise” for the election by “falsely crediting” some persons with political parties, including “Okotie Christopher, Reverend Dr. Onwubuya and Ojinika Jeff Chinze.”

“The grave errors referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5 above were under the hands and signature of the first Respondent’s Chairman, (who was also the Returning Officer) in the conduct of the final collation of the results of the Presidential Election,” they claimed.

“The Petitioners state that the final results as declared by the first respondent are those that were transmitted online to the website of the first Respondent (www inecnigeria.org),” PDP insisted.

No nation that consumes above its production capacity can ever have a strong, reliable and dependable economy with a corresponding strong currency.

Nigeria is an abject consumer nation in the midst of plenty, practicing a lazy consumer federalism that gravitates around a broke father Christmas presidency and where states governed by disingenuous, squander-manic and mostly intellectually barren Governors hold sway.

I love the clamor for resource control and fiscal federalism in Nigeria because it would open the doors to access to opportunities for prosperity for citizens if administered with transparency and accountability, but looking at the history of some of those who are championing it, I get agitated and deeply troubled that they are in it to advance a cause for themselves and their selfish interests against the overall good of the people with them as drivers if awarded without strict control mechanisms that would make it impossible for anybody or group of persons to abuse for personal gains.

Some of Nigeria’s economic policies are unfortunately repressive for Nigerians with creative ingenuity but favorable to new colonizing forces led by China coming into Africa to poison Africans with their fake products for massive profits and so, are in need of urgent rethink for the immediate good of this generation and the long term good of the country and her future generations unless we have agreed to be slaves in perpetuity in our land especially with the way we choose our leadership.

Every vote we sell to a leadership misfit without the passion, compassion and the patriotic zeal to serve Nigeria has an ominous implication on her future and the future of her people, no matter how much it satisfies our immediate need without looking at the big picture”.

Mr. Itohoimo Udosen                         

Political/Public Affairs analyst This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has estimated that the country’s inflationary rate will rise to 12 percent and thereafter moderate.

The Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele stated this on Thursday in Lagos at the Businessday post election economic agenda conference, adding that the apex bank would also keep the current monetary policy stance of the bank.

“The CBN has set the post-election agenda for the nation’s monetary policy, projecting that the current monetary policy stance of the bank is expected to continue while inflation is estimated to rise to 12 per cent and moderate thereafter,” he said.

The inflation rate is currently put at 11.31 percent for February, according to statistics from the CBN and the National Bureau of Statistics.

Hinging the monetary policy stance of the bank on rising inflation expectations, the CBN governor however noted that the bank would adjust the policy rate in line with unfolding conditions and outlooks, adding that the bank would continue in its drive to ensure that the policy interest rate was set to balance the objectives of price stability with output stabilisation.

Emefiele, who disclosed that the apex bank based the inflationary projection on productivity gains in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, said the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, was expected to pick up in the first half of the current year owing largely to the continued efforts at driving indigenous production in high-impact real sector activities.

Speaking on the bank’s foreign exchange rate policy, Emefiele said the CBN, in spite of expected pressures from the volatility in the crude oil markets, would maintain its stable exchange rate over the next year.

“Gross stability is projected in the foreign exchange market, given increased oil production and contained import bill,” he said.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange has revealed that a total of N5.5 billion was recorded as foreign outflows from the stock market for the month of February.

This was contained in its latest foreign portfolio investment report published on its website on Friday.

It stated that the figure increased by 97.8 per cent from N27.81bn in January 2019 while foreign inflows increased by 91.24 per cent from N22.97bn to N43.93bn between January and February.

Total foreign transactions also increased by 48 per cent from N66.85bn in January to N98.94bn in February.