Tribunal: We ‘ll Give All Necessary Documents To LP Legal Team – INEC

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on Monday, assured the Labour Party’s Legal Team that the Commission will provide all the documents it requested for to prosecute its case before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting at the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal.

Prof. Yakubu gave the assurance when the LP legal team visited the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja to discuss modalities for obtaining the documents.

“INEC has nothing to hide. Documents available at the HQ will be given immediately. We are meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners today and we will discuss how other documents at the state level could also be made available to you speedily,” Prof. Yakubu told the team.

LEADERSHIP reports that INEC had granted the LP access to the election materials that were used for the February 25, 2023 presidential and the National Assembly elections.

Recall that the LP had rejected the results of the presidential election, which produced the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the president-elect.

Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who polled 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes respectively.

LEADERSHIP reports that the Court of Appeal serving as the Election Petitions Tribunal had last week granted leave to the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to have access to all the sensitive materials used by INEC in the February 25 elections.

INEC, however, asked the court to vary the order, saying the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) needed to be reprogrammed ahead of the Governorship and State Assembly polls.