By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
The legal challenges of the February 25 presidential election have started in earnest as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Gregory Obi, on Friday obtained permission from the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to have unfettered access to all sensitive materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of last Saturday’s presidential election.
The appellate court, which is sitting as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), also ordered the electoral umpire to grant access to the election materials to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku to inspect all the materials used by INEC to conduct the disputed election.
The orders were issued by an appellate court panel led by Mr. Justice Joseph Ikyegh after hearing two separate ex-parte applications filed by the two dissatisfied presidential candidates and their political parties.
The INEC had in the wee hours of Wednesday, declared the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the winner of the presidential poll.
According to the figures computed by INEC, Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes; Atiku of PDP had the second-highest figure with 6,984,52 while Obi of LP polled 6,101,533 votes.
But Obi and Atiku kicked against the declaration made by INEC and have now sued the Commission, the acclaimed winner of the presidential election, Tinubu, and his party, APC who are now 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.
Recall that INEC declared Tinubu of the APC the winner of the presidential election, beating out 17 other candidates.
