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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, have withdrawn their fresh application filed before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) for an order directing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow them or their agents participate in the process of sorting out the ballot papers used for the election.
Following what they termed reluctance of INEC to obey the order of court, PDP and Atiku had initiated a fresh application to compel INEC to grant their request.
At yesterday’s proceedings, the applicants moved a notice of discontinuance on the sole reason that the application has been overtaken by events and was consequently struck out by the tribunal.
The motion ex parte marked CA/PEC/10M/2023 was predicated on 11 grounds including the fact that the applicants must be compelled to ensure the sanctity and propriety of the documentary and electronic evidence in the custody of INEC to enable them maintain the election petition in challenging the result declared by the electoral body.
In addition, the applicants said there was a need for them to observe/participate in the said sorting and exercise in all the offices of INEC nationwide to enable them effectively comply with the order of the tribunal made on March 3, 2023, granting them leave to inspect, scan, carry out forensic examination and analysis of the ballot papers, data form, BVAS/and or card readers including photocopying of the ballot papers, information stored in the computer server/IREV among others.
Furthermore, the applicants harped on the need to have their agents, officials and representatives present at the sorting out of the said documents at all the offices of INEC where the exercise is scheduled to take place nationwide, so as to ensure transparency and that the ballot papers are not tampered with.
The motion ex parte filed by their lead counsel, Joe Kyari Gadzama, was supported by six paragraphs affidavit, deposed to by Nanchang Ndam, a litigation Secretary to the legal team set up by the applicants to challenge the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
Meanwhile, lawyers of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, have continued inspection of election materials used for the poll.
This exercise began on Monday.
INEC had said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and backend report of over 11,000 pages was being finalised and would be made available to the lawyers.
A report submitted on Tuesday to INEC by lawyers indicated that the LP’s team began the inspection on Monday.
Speaking on behalf of INEC’s lawyers, Tanimu Inuwa, said the commission had forms EC8D (summary of results) of each state and FCT, Ec8da (national summary) and Ec8a.
He said BVAS and backend report of over 11,000 pages was being finalised and that the result sheets and ballot papers were in the various states, not at the INEC headquarters.
He suggested that a timeline for visitation for all parties be made for ease and the persons appointed to inspect be limited.
Sun Newspaper
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