Nigeria’s president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sought a court of appeal order to access sensitive materials used by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the just concluded presidential election.
Recall Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), with a total of 8,794,726 votes, was declared winner of the February 25 poll ahead of Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 6,984,520 votes and Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), who secured 6,101,533 votes.
The former Lagos State governor, at the court session on Tuesday, through his lawyer, Akintola Makinde, said he would need to inspect, scan and make photocopies of some of the electoral materials to enable him prepare his defence against petitions that would seek to nullify his election.
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“The materials will be relevant in helping us to prepare our defence and also make comparison with the information contained in INEC’s back-end server,” Makinde said.
In the first ex parte application, the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Obi, alongside INEC are the respondents while in the second application, the PDP and its candidate, Atiku, are cited as respondents, with INEC.
However, the appellate court presided over by a three-member panel has fixed a ruling for Wednesday.
