The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has prayed the Court of Appeal in Abuja to vary the orders granted the Labour Party (LP)’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, that they be allowed to inspect sensitive materials used for the presidential election.
The election was won by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), while both Obi and Atiku rejected the outcome and sought legal redress.
In its legal process dated March 4, the electoral body pleaded with the appellate court, expected to sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, to vary the order to enable it reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), it used for the presidential poll.
According to INEC, the configuration was necessary since the BVAS would also be deployed for the next round of elections, starting with governorship and state assemblies elections scheduled for Saturday, as well as other rescheduled elections.
INEC also said, without a prompt variation of the inspection order granted to Obi and Atiku, especially the aspect restraining it from tampering with formation contained in the BVAS, it would be difficult for it to proceed with the scheduled elections.
The order
A three-member panel of the court, had last Friday, granted the duo of Obi and Atiku the order to access all the sensitive materials INEC deployed for the conduct of the presidential election held February 25.
The Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led panel made the orders following two separate ex-parte applications the duo filed alongside their political parties.
Cited as respondents in the matter were INEC, Tinubu and his party, the APC.
They predicated their applications on Section146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Paragraph 47 (1, 2 &3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, as well as under the inherent jurisdiction of the Court as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Obi, in his application marked CA/PEC/02M/23, moved by his team of lawyers led by Mr. Alex Ejesieme (SAN), sought six principal reliefs, while Atiku’s counsel, Mr. Adedamola Faloku, sought seven prayers from the tribunal.
They specifically persuaded the court to compel INEC to allow them obtain documents in its custody that were used for the presidential election.
They also averred that the requested documents would aid their petition against the outcome of the presidential contest declared in Tinubu’s favour as well as his party.
Furthermore, the applicants obtained an order of the court granting them leave to file the application, outside or before the pre-hearing session of the planned substantive petitions.
