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The presidential election petition tribunal, on Wednesday, March 8, rejected the application by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to modify the orders it earlier granted to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) presidential candidates, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, respectively, to inspect election materials used during the just concluded presidential poll.
The court recently gave Atiku and Obi the permission to inspect the sensitive materials used for the conduct of the February 25 election.
Both Atiku and Obi obtained the order to challenge the outcome of the presidential election which they alleged was marred by irregularities.
Recall that INEC, on March 1, declared the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
However, the PDP and the LP presidential candidates are contesting the outcome, and they subsequently filed separate ex-parte applications.
Atiku and Obi asked the court to grant them access to inspect the sensitive materials that INEC used for the conduct of the presidential poll.
However, INEC, in a motion on the notice filed on March 4, asked the court to vary the order restraining it from tampering with materials used for the election.
The commission said that it needed to reconfigure the BVAS for the next round of elections which would take place on Saturday.
The court, in its ruling on Wednesday, said that the application was unnecessary because it never granted permission to Atiku, Obi and their parties to scientifically access and inspect INEC’s database, including the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices.
The tribunal also held that the apprehension being expressed by INEC, which includes the possible revelation of the identities of voters and their voting choices, was unnecessary because no applicant was granted leave to access INEC’s database.
Source: TheStreetJournal | Read More from Thestreetjournal.org
