There were early legal
fireworks on Friday as the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja granted the reliefs
sought by the candidate of Labour Party (LP) Peter Obi, and his counterpart in
the People Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar to inspect election materials
for last Saturday’s contentious presidential election.
Both Obi and Atiku
rejected the outcome of the election which was held alongside the national
assembly elections.
The Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives
Congress, APC, winner of the election.
INEC Chairman, Mahmoud
Yakubu announced on Wednesday morning that Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to
defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Obi of the LP, who came
third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.
Both the LP and PDP
candidates approached the court via an ex-parte motions filed at the
Presidential Election Court at the Court of Appeal, listing INEC, Tinubu and
the APC as the first, second and third respondent, requesting to inspect all
the election materials in the custody of the INEC.
Obi’s team of lawyers is
led by Alex Ejesieme (SAN), sought six principal reliefs, while Adedamola
Faloku (SAN) who is leading Atiku’s team sought seven prayers from the
tribunal.
Specifically, they
sought complete delivery and inspection of all election materials to aid their
case pursuant to Section 146 (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.
After full
consideration, the panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh
made the orders after separately hearing the two separate ex parte
applications.
It ordered the INEC to
allow the applicants access to the election materials in full including and
specifically the sensitive materials and all other materials thereto.
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