The Presidential Election Petition Court sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, Friday granted the requests by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Mr. Peter Obi, to inspect the balloting materials used during last Saturday’s presidential poll.
Shortly after the results were announced, Atiku and Obi rejected the results of the February 25 presidential election as announced by Prof. MahmoodYakubu, the Returning Officer for the election, owing to percieved irregularities, vowing to recover their mandate in court.
The two candidates rebuffed the gesture of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who in his acceptance as winner of the poll on Wednesday, asked them to support him in the task of building the nation.
Atiku and Obi spoke at separate news conferences in Abuja on Thursday, rejecting to outcome of the election, describing it as a charade and a rape of the wishes of Nigerian voters.
They subsequently approached the Appeal Court asking for permission to inspect materials INEC used at the poll.
Having heard their exparte motions, moved separately by their counsels, the court on Friday granted the two candidates’ requests, ordering INEC to grant them access to all the sensitive materials deployed for the presidential election ssid to have been won by Tinubu.
Justice Joseph Ikyegh of the appellate court, who hewrd the motion, granted the requests.
The two petitioners had listed the electoral umpire, Tinubu and APC as respondents.
Both applications were made pursuant to Section146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Paragraph 47 (1, 2 &3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, as well as under the inherent jurisdiction of the court, as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Obi, in his application moved by his team of lawyers led by Alex Ejesieme (SAN), sought six principal reliefs.
Atiku’s 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 election that was declared in favour of Tinubu.
