The lead counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate, Obong Nsima Ekere, in the March 9 governorship election in Akwa Ibom, Chief Victor Iyanam, has alleged that the INEC was frustrating the legal team from in inspecting election materials as ordered by the tribunal.
Iyanam, who expressed his displeasure in Uyo Tuesday, said the INEC was playing the PDP’s script by deliberately delaying the party from inspection of election materials.
He said since the tribunal issued the order on April 15 mandating the INEC to allow APC’s legal team to carry out the inspection, the INEC has failed to obey.
“INEC has continued to give the party flimsy excuses to delay the inspection and frustrate the party from achieving its objectives.
“The excuses have variously continued to be untenable in the light of the short period of time to prove our case at the election petition tribunal,” Iyanam said.
Iyanam said that the INEC as an umpire should not be seen as playing the script of PDP to cause unnecessary delay since the tribunal has a time frame to conclude its assignment.
The lead counsel urged the state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Mike Igini, to expedite action to enable the APC fulfill the order of the tribunal without any further delay.
Iyanam said the legal team would press for contempt against INEC and Mr Igini in the state should there be any further delay.
“INEC supposed to be unbiased. We wonder why INEC is playing ‘hide and seek’, giving flimsy excuses to deny us access to inspect materials,” he said.
He said that the chances of Ekere winning at the tribunal was very bright, stating that the APC has solid evidence to prove its case, adding that the inspection would concretise their evidence.
But the INEC public affairs officer in the state, Don Etukudo, described the allegations as “baseless and unfounded”.
He said: “I would not have dignified such baseless and unfounded allegations with a reply but for the purpose of setting the record. Between last week Thursday and today they had met with the INEC legal team only once and since then there has been on communication again.
“And they have not come back until today, so the allegations are baseless. Inspection is not an easy exercise. It is something that has to be sorted out. We have schedules for the governorship including even the national and state House of Assembly elections”.
