Sunday Ejike – Abuja
The Presidential Election Petition Court has adjourned till Wednesday to rule on an application by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking to vary the orders granted the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and that of Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi to inspect materials used during the Saturday, February 25, 2023 presidential election.
The three-member panel fixed the date after taking arguments from counsel to all the parties in the matter.
In a Motion on Notice filed on March 4, the electoral body is praying the court to vary the order which restrained it from tampering with materials used for the election.
The commission said it needed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the Saturday March 11 governorship and House of Assembly elections.
The Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja had on March 3 granted the applications brought before by Obi and Atiku to have access to all the sensitive materials INEC deployed for the conduct of the presidential election held on February 25.
The applicants urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents in its custody that were used for the presidential election.
They maintained that the requested documents would aid their petition against the outcome of the presidential contest that was declared in favour of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
…Details later
