President-Elect, Bola Tinubu has been granted permission by the Court of Appeal to access sensitive materials used by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the February 25th presidential elections.
The APC presidential candidate who was declared winner of the election by INEC had through his lawyer, Akintola Makinde, said he would need to inspect, scan and make photocopies of some of the electoral materials to enable him to prepare his defence against petitions that would seek to nullify his election.
“The materials will be relevant in helping us to prepare our defence and also make comparison with the information contained in INEC’s back-end server,” Makinde said.
At a session on Wednesday, Tinubu’s request was granted by a three-member panel of the court led by Joseph Ikyegh. The panel gave the applicant permission to inspect INEC materials and make photocopies of them.
Recall that the appellate court had on March 3 granted leave to Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Mr Peter Obi of LP to inspect election materials used by INEC to conduct the February 25 presidential election.
Also recall that INEC had on March 6, approached the court, asking it to vary the order to enable it reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines for the March 11 governorship and State House of Assembly elections slated for March 11, 2023.
In the same session on Wednesday, the court declined to vary its order granting Peter Obi of LP and Atiku Abubakar of PDP permission to inspect election materials. INEC was ordered by the court to allow the Applicants to inspect and carry out digital forensic examination of all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the elections, as well as to avail them the Certified True Copy, of the result of the physical inspection of the BVAS.
However, the court granted INEC’s request to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) it used for the presidential election, ahead of the Governorship and State Assembly elections taking place on Saturday, 11th March.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
