The duo of Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) on Friday obtained permission from the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja to access all sensitive materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the presidential election on February 25.
The presidential candidates of both parties had asked the Presidential Election Court (PEC) in Abuja allow them inspect materials used for the February 25 election.
Speaking at his first press conference on Thursday in Abuja after the Saturday elections, Obi who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes, according to the results announced by the INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said that he won the election but it was manipulated by the electoral umpire.
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, on the other hand described the general elections as a “rape of democracy” just as he vowed to challenge the outcome of the elections in the court of law.
He faulted the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu, for hurriedly announcing the results and declaring Bola Tinubu as the winner despite alleged irregularities that characterised the conduct of the election.
Both parties asked the Presidential Election Court (PEC) to allow them inspect materials used for the election.
The request is contained in two ex-parte motions they filed at the PEC secretariat at the Court of Appeal, Abuja. While Atiku filed his own on March 1, Obi’s motion was filed the next day.
However, the appellate court, which will sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, ordered the electoral body to grant access to both parties.
The orders were issued by an appellate court panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh after hearing two separate ex-parte applications filed by the two dissatisfied presidential candidates and their political parties.
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 candidate, Tinubu.