Over N3bn has been budgeted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to defend the results of the February 25 presidential and national assembly election and the March 18 governorship and state assembly polls.
INEC had on March 1 declared the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the February 25 presidential election, but the five candidates filed petitions seeking the nullification of the poll.
At least 100 election petitions have been filed by aggrieved candidates and their parties who lost in the elections at the presidential and state election petition tribunals to challenge the outcome of the polls. Which include, the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar; the Labour Party, Peter Obi and others.
Also, election petition tribunals in over 12 states have equally received petitions from National Assembly candidates who are not satisfied with the results of the just concluded elections.
The states where the petitions had been received included Edo, Plateau, Ondo, Kwara, Ogun, Bayelsa, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, Bauchi, Lagos and Niger states.
Some aggrieved candidates had protested in Ogun and Nasarawa states, vowing to challenge the results of the elections in court.
Last November, the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu lamented that the commission was handling over 600 cases in several courts across the federation.
Speaking at a capacity-building workshop for over 300 judges that would handle election disputes, he revealed that the cases pending against the electoral body relate to the conduct of primaries by political parties.
However, INEC in its Election Project Plan for the 2023 general election earmarked N3b for the prosecution of election-related cases.
The document which was obtained on Sunday read, in part, “Litigation and prosecution: N2,104,965,000 (2022) and #3,087,195,425 (2023). Total, N5,192,160,425.’’
The INEC election project plan also showed that the electoral umpire budgeted N886.2m for legal drafting and clearance in 2022 and 2023.
The commission allocated N337.4m for legal drafting and clearance in 2022 while N548.7m was budgeted for the same item for this year.
The number of lawyers the electoral commission would engage to handle the numerous election petition cases lodged at the tribunals.
The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi said he did not know the number of solicitors that would be employed by the commission when asked on Sunday.