Lawyers of Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the just concluded presidential election, have vowed to take the electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to court, over what they called a deliberate refusal of INEC to allow them to inspect the electoral materials as ordered by court.
The presidential election tribunal had granted Obi his request to be allowed to inspect the electoral materials used for the February 25 presidential election in the country.
The controversial presidential election which INEC was accused of conducting in violation of the Electoral Acts, saw the emergence of the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the President-elect.
The electoral body had prayed the court to go ahead and vary the directives given to the angry parties on inspection of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, in order to enable it to reconfigure the system in preparation for the state level elections, which the court declined.
Though the tribunal granted INEC its request to reconfigure the machines, but insisted that the earlier permission to inspect the election materials was still valid.
The electoral body consequently stated that they would keep allowing litigants access to the electoral materials they needed in order to pursue their court cases.
However, Alex Ejesieme, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria who is a member of Obi’s legal team, said INEC was yet to allow them access to the materials used for the election.
“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 stated.
According to the Whistler, Ejesieme alleged that the electoral body was intentionally making efforts to delay a petition by Obi’s legal team against the presidential polls as required by the Electoral Act, noting that the INEC knew that having access to the election materials would expose its alleged fraud 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,” he added, saying that, “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.”
