The president-elect and the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu has asked the Court of Appeal in Abuja to order the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to grant him access to sensitive materials it used for the February 25 presidential election.
Tinubu, through his lawyer, Mr Akintola Makinde, on Tuesday during a court session 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.
Tinubu had on Monday filed the first ex-parte application with Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi as respondents, while the second application has the Peoples Democratic
Party, and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as respondents, alongside INEC
“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.
Tinubu’s petition will be heard by the appellate court sitting as the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.
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.
However, INEC, 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.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
