Appeal Court Grants Obi, Atiku’s Request To Inspect INEC’s Election Materials

The appeal court has granted Obi and Atiku’s request to inspect INEC’s election materials.

Glamtush reports that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), on Friday obtained permission from the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja to access all sensitive materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for the conduct of the presidential election on February 25.

This online platform understands that the appellate court, which will sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, also ordered the electoral body to grant access to the election materials to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The orders were issued by an appellate court panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh after hearing two separate ex-parte applications filed by the two dissatisfied presidential candidates and their political parties.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Wednesday, declared Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the presidential poll.

Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had the second-highest figure with 6,984,52 and Obi polled 6,101,533 votes.

INEC, the acclaimed winner of the presidential election, Bola Tinubu, and his party, the All Progressives Congress, were named as respondents in the case.

Both applications were based on Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Section 47 (1, 2 & 3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, and the Court’s inherent jurisdiction as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

While Obi’s team of lawyers, led by Mr Alex Ejesieme, SAN, sought six major reliefs in his application, Atiku’s lawyer, Mr Adedamola Faloku, sought seven prayers from the tribunal.

The applicants specifically asked the court to order INEC to release documents used in the presidential election that were in its custody.

They maintained that the requested documents would aid their petition challenging the outcome of the presidential election, which was declared in favor of the APC’s candidate, Tinubu.

It will be remembered that INEC declared Tinubu of the APC the winner of the presidential election, beating out 17 other candidates.

According to INEC, Tinubu received 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku, who received 6,984,520 votes, and Obi of the LP, who received 6,101,533 votes.

Both PDP and LP had since rejected the outcome of the election and vowed to challenge it in court.