Jega ‘statement’ on Nigeria election servers was fabricated, says former INEC chairman

The question of whether the electoral commission used a computer server to tally the results of the February 23 presidential election has been at the heart of the controversy over the legitimacy of the vote.

While INEC declared President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the election with a lead of nearly four million votes, Buhari’s challenger Atiku Abubakar claims the elections were rigged against him.

Atiku and the PDP have since filed a suit at the election tribunal, claiming results from INEC’s computer server shows he won the elections with 1.6 million votes. But Yunus Usman, INEC’s counsel, told the tribunal that INEC has no such server.

Following this revelation, many social media posts have quoted Jega -- who was the INEC chairman for the 2015 presidential vote, considered as one of the best-managed elections in Nigeria’s history -- as saying there is indeed an INEC server.

“INEC server exist and it is functional. Let's call a spade a spade. I was once INEC chairman and results were transmitted electronically during my time,” the posts quote Jega as saying. We’ve archived one such post, which has been shared more than 1,100 times, here, and another, shared 300 times, here.

The Daily Independent newspaper ran an article about the controversy with the headline “INEC Server Existed, Still Functional – Jega Insists”. But the article, which has been shared over 500 times and which we’ve archived here, quotes Jega as denying he made such a claim.

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A screenshot taken on June 21, 2019, showing a Facebook post that includes the fabricated quotes

The comments falsely attributed to Jega were also shared by more than 2,000 people via this tweet.

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A screenshot taken on June 21, 2019, showing a tweet making the same claim

Some blogs also ran with the claim, including posts on Exclusive 103.com and Naija Live TV which were together shared more than 1,900 times.

Jega, however, told AFP via email that “he never said that”.

“The news of the existence of INEC Server attributed to me was a blatant lie, fake news created to achieve some political objective but at my expense,” he said.  

“It was fabricated. I issued a disclaimer and some fact check outlets, like CDD, have circulated that. However, as you know, once a lie trends, countering it is difficult.”

The former INEC boss, who introduced some reforms to the commission during his run, said that “our legal framework as of now does not allow electronic transmission of results”.

“We didn’t do electronic transmission of results in 2011 and 2015. There was no server in INEC for that purpose,” he said.

INEC budget shows that about N1.16 billion was budgeted for replacement of servers in 25 states and the National data centre. But the electoral commission says the 2019 elections were conducted manually.

Online posts that falsely attribute comments to people -- often to help support one political argument or another -- are common in Nigeria. In another example, false claims that Atiku had threatened to call a massive protest if the commission rules against him went similarly viral this week.