The legal team of the presidential candidate of
the Labour party, Peter Obi, has vowed to take legal action against the
Independent National Electoral Commission over “deliberate” refusal to allow
its client to inspect presidential election materials in line with the orders
of the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal had issued an order allowing Obi, the LP as
well as the Peoples Democratic Party to inspect materials used for the February
25 presidential election which INEC declared was won by Bola Tinubu of the All
Progressive Congress.
INEC, on March 6, filed
a motion on notice praying the court to vary the orders to enable the
commission to reconfigure accreditation machines used for the election to
enable their use for the forthcoming governorship and state assembly elections.
The
appellate court, in its discretion, allowed INEC to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, but dismissed its
application, saying that its earlier orders granting Obi access to electoral materials stands.
INEC, in apparent
reaction to the ruling, stated, “we wish to reiterate that the Commission is
not against litigants inspecting election materials. Consequently, it will
continue to grant all litigants access to the materials they require to pursue
their cases in court.”
But a member of Obi’s
legal team, Alex Ejesieme SAN, said in a phone interview on Saturday that the
electoral umpire has not granted them access to election materials.
“Well, we have written to them (INEC), we have done everything
possible and they have refused to allow us to inspect. So, we are going to
review our positions this weekend and by Monday, we will know the next thing to
do,” the lawyer said.
He accused INEC of deliberately trying to delay Obi’s legal team
from instituting a petition against the presidential election as prescribed by
the Electoral Act, adding that the electoral umpire knows that accessing the
election materials will expose alleged ballot rigging in the election.
“Yes. You know, what they are doing is deliberate. Ordinarily,
the proper thing for us to do is to commence committal proceedings against the
INEC chairman and the officers involved but remember, by the Electoral Act
2022, we are supposed to file a petition.
“So, what they are trying to do is to divert attention,”
Ejesieme said, adding, “We will take steps to mount pressure on them to allow
us to have copies of the electoral materials in line with the order of the
court of Appeal.”
It is noted that while collations of presidential results were
ongoing on February 26, the Labour party, PDP and the Action Democratic
Congress had boycotted the event and called for cancellation of the election.
International observers from the European
Union also accused INEC of “lack of
transparency” due to its failure to immediately transmit results electronically
from polling units to its public result viewing portal.
Regarding access to
election documents, Section 74 of the Electoral Act 2022, reads as
follows, “74 (1) The Resident Electoral Commissioner in a state where an
election is conducted shall, within 14 days after an application is made to him
by any of the parties to an election petition, cause a certified true copy of such
document to be issued to the said party.
“(2) Any Resident
Electoral Commissioner who willfully fails to comply with the provisions in
subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a maximum fine
of N2,000,000 or imprisonment for a term of 12 months or both.”
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