Presidential Poll: Tinubu Seeks Court Order To Inspect Election Materials

The president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has asked the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, for an order to access sensitive materials used by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the 2023 presidential election.

Tinubu, through his lawyer, Akintola Makinde, said he would need to inspect, scan and make photocopies of some of the electoral materials to enable him to prepare his defence against petitions seeking to nullify his electoral victory.

“The materials will be relevant in helping us to prepare our defence and also make comparison with the information contained in INEC’s back-end server,” Makinde said.

Also, at the sitting, the Tribunal said it would deliver ruling on the application by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking it to vary its order granted to Labour Party and People’s Democratic Party to access materials used for the 2023 presidential poll.

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A three-man panel of the Appellate Court fixed date to rule on the matter after listening to the arguments of the parties involved.

INEC, had through its counsel, Tanimu Enuwa, SAN, informed the court of its Motion on Notice and written addresses filed and dated March 6 as well as an affidavit and exhibits attached to substantiate their application.

Adopting their written addresses and other documents as their brief of arguments, the electoral body asked the court to grant the application.

When asked by the court how they wanted the order varied, INEC maintained that their affidavit demonstrated the effect the order will have on the coming Governorship and State Assembly elections

“We will run into constitutional crises if you have the elections conducted outside the constitutional time,” INEC stated.

Also, INEC wanted the order to inspect sensitive election materials varied in accordance with Section 122 of the Electoral Act, 2022.

In his argument, counsel to Labour Party and Peter Obi, Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, adopted all the written addresses and counter affidavit, filed and dated March 6 as his argument and asked the court to dismiss the application.

On the application to inspect the BVAS, Mr Peter Obi was seeking for an order for a physical inspection of the machines to enable him conduct a forensic investigation.

Ikpeazu also submitted that LP was also seeking to obtain the certified true copies of the material as well as ensure the evidences are present before they are configured.

Recall that the appellate court had on March 3 granted leave to Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Mr Peter Obi of LP to inspect election materials used by INEC to conduct the February 25 presidential election.

However, INEC, on March 6, approached the court, asking it to vary the order to enable it reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines for the March 11 governorship and State House of Assembly elections slated for March 11, 2023.

INEC maintained that the application became necessary following an order restraining it from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them were issued.

He said INEC would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the forthcoming elections that would take place in the 36 States of the federation excluding the FCT.

Speaking further, he said the number of BVAS required to conduct the election across the states, INEC needed to reconfigure the BVAS used for the February 25 elections and deploy them to polling units for the March 11 elections.

The source said that the technical team of the commission had to be deployed on time to start the reconfiguration of the devices, which had to be done one by one.

He maintained that discarding the ex-parte order was important, adding that not getting it could result to a postponement of the Saturday’s governorship and State House of Assembly elections.