The candidate of the Labour Party in the just concluded presidential election held on February 25, Peter Obi has been granted access to all the sensitive materials the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) deployed for the said election.
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The access was granted to Obi and the People’s Democratic Party candidate, Atiku Abubakar, by a panel of the Court of Appeal Abuja led by Justice Ikyegh. The panel made the orders after it heard two separate ex parte application the two presidential candidates filed alongside the political parties.
The Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led panel of the appellate court will also sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
The electoral umpire, INEC, the President-elect Bola Tinubu, as well as is party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) were cited as respondents in the case.
The Obi and Atiku applications were predicated on Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, paragraph 47 (1,2, and 3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, as well under the inherent jurisdiction of the court as referenced by section 6 (6)(a) and (b) of the 1999 constitution, as amended.
Section 146 (1): An order for inspection of a polling document or any other document or packet in the custody of the Chief National Electoral Commissioner or any other officer of the commission may be made an Election Tribunal of a Court of competent jurisdiction if it is satisfied that the order required is for the purpose of instituting, maintaining or defending an election petition
In is application through his lawyer, Alex Ejesieme, Peter Obi sought six principal reliefs.
Atiku Abubakar through his lawyer, Adedamola Faloku, sought seven prayers from the tribunal.
Specifically, the applicants urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents in its custody that were used for the presidential election.
They maintained that the requested documents would aid their petition against the outcome of the presidential contest that was declared in favour of Tinubu.
Peter Obi at a news conferences in Abuja on Thursday declined to accept the result of the election as declared by INEC, and stated that he won the election, and was going to prove it to Nigerians.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
