Appeal Court grants Atiku, Obi’s requests to inspect INEC’s presidential electoral materials

The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Friday acceded to requests by Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi to inspect electoral materials used in the conduct of the presidential election.

Atiku and Mr Obi are presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), respectively, for the 25 February presidential poll.

The duo, who lost to the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s presidential candidate and president-elect, Bola Tinubu, have alleged that the election was flawed.

Mr Tinubu polled 8.8 million votes to defeat both Atiku and Mr Obi in the contest.

Atiku and Obi have commenced their separate legal actions to challenge the outcome of the elections at the Court of Appeal in Abuja. The Court of Appeal acts as the Presidential Election Petition Court where the outcomes of presidential elections are challenged by aggrieved candidates.

They have both filed separate ex parte applications, praying to be granted access to inspect sensitive materials that INEC used for the conduct of the presidential poll last Saturday.

Mr Obi, on Friday, secured leave of the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja to have access to all the sensitive materials the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, deployed for the conduct of the presidential election held on 25 February.

Joseph Ikyegh, who led a panel of the appellate court, ordered INEC to allow Atiku and Mr Obi to inspect the electoral materials.

The plaintiffs listed the electoral umpire, INEC, APC and Mr Tinubu as defendants in the suit.

Prayers

The plaintiffs based their requests on provisions of the Electoral Act and the constitution in demanding an inspection of the poll materials.

At both joint and separate press conferences, Atiku and Mr Obi queried INEC’s failure to electronically transmit the results of the presidential election from polling units to its IREV portal.

Alex Ejesieme, Mr Obi’s lawyer, sought six prayers while Atiku’s lawyer, Ademola Faloku, put forward seven prayers.

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They urged the court to order INEC to allow them access to sensitive materials that were deployed for the presidential election.

Justifying their requests, the duo argued that the documents would assist them in lodging petitions to challenge Mr Tinubu’s emergence as president-elect at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja.

PREMIUM TIMES reported last week that the registry of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal is now open in Abuja.

On 1 March, INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, declared Mr Tinubu as president-elect after beating 17 candidates in the race.

The election results as announced by INEC showed Mr Tinubu garnered a total of 8,794,726 votes to beat Atiku who scored a total of 6,984,520 votes, and Mr Obi who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.