THE Court of Appeal in Abuja has granted the request of Labour party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’S, Atiku Abubakar, to access all sensitive materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the presidential election on February 25.
The judgments were issued by an appellate court panel chaired by Justice Joseph Ikyegh after hearing two separate ex parte applications brought by the two presidential candidates and their political parties.
INEC, the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, and his party, the All Progressives Congress, were named as respondents in the case (APC).
The applications were based on Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act of 2022, Section 47 (1, 2, and 3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, and the court’s inherent authority as mentioned by Section 6 (6) (a) and (b) of the 1999 constitution, as amended.
Obi’s application, filed by Alex Ejesieme, sought six major reliefs, while Atiku’s counsel, Adedamola Faloku, asked the tribunal for seven.
The applicants specifically asked the court to order INEC to release materials used in the presidential election that were in its custody.
They maintained that the requested documents would help their petition challenging Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election.
Recall that INEC pronounced Tinubu of the APC the winner of the presidential election, knocking out 17 other contestants.
According to INEC, Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes defeating Atiku, who received 6,984,520 votes, and Obi of the LP, who received 6,101,533 votes.
Both the PDP and the LP have already rejected the election results and vowed to challenge them in court.
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