Labour Party has stated that it will call its supporters to match to INEC offices nationwide in a non violent protest in an effort to curtail the flagrant disobedience to court orders by INEC.
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In a statement on publicized on its Twitter handle and published on its website, the party expressed its dismay at the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission to obey the order of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
INEC with greatest impunity have refused, neglected and failed to obey the Order of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja made on the 03rd day of March 2023, directing it to grant the Labour Party and its presidential candidate. https://t.co/k0wS40gU6c pic.twitter.com/N1e2QD6cRt
— LabourPartyNG (@NgLabour) March 11, 2023
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja had on 3rd March, 2023, granted leave to the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Gregory Obi to inspect election materials used by INEC to conduct the February 25 presidential election.
On Wednesday, March 8th, the tribunal granted INEC’s request to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used for the presidential election.
The court also ordered INEC to allow Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, and Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party 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.
The press release by the Labour Party signed by Dr Yunusa Tanko, the Chief Spokesman of the LP-PCC reads;
“The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with greatest impunity have refused, neglected and failed to obey the Order of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja made on the 03rd day of March 2023, directing it to grant the Labour Party and its presidential candidate H.E. Peter Gregory Obi leave to apply and receive from INEC, certified true copies of materials used in the presidential election held on 25th February 2023.
It will be recalled that the aforesaid Order of the presidential election petition tribunal was duly served on INEC on the 3rd of March 2023 despite the fact that they were present and represented at the tribunal when the Order was made.
Not minding the service of the said Order on INEC, and a reminder letter dated the 6th day of March 2023 and delivered same date at the INEC Headquarters Abuja, the electoral umpire has continued to ignore and or disobey the valid Order of such magnitude till NOW.
It should be noted that in a democracy like ours, rule of law must triumph not only in our legal system but also in our body polity as a whole. Parties to a litigation like in the instant case must accept and obey every order of court in good faith and no party should be seen to employ self-help to disparage or disrespect an order of court which if not checked and curtailed could possibly undermine our democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism.
The action of INEC under reference also constitutes for all intent and purposes, an act of judicial insubordination and willful refusal to comply to the order of court. As we speak INEC has chosen to obey the court order given to it to reconfigure the BIVAS machine, which they doing right now and ignoring the order granted to us to inspect electoral materials.
We therefore call on the general public to note the level of lawlessness and brazen disobedience to a lawful order of a court by an important statutory agency such as INEC, and which is a well calculated attempt to undermine and frustrate the presentation of the Petition by the Labour Party and its Presidential candidate before the tribunal in good time.
We therefore want to state that we will not fail to call our supporters to march to INEC offices nationwide in a non violent protest which is allowed by law.
This is to curtail the flagrant disobedience to court orders by INEC.”
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
