Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has told the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja of his difficulty in accessing electoral documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Gatekeepers News reports that at the resumed hearing of Mr Obi’s petition on Wednesday, his lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), informed the five-member panel of the court led by Haruna Tsammani that INEC “stubbornly refused to produce 70 per cent of the electoral documents that were requested (by the LP).”
Mr Obi, who came third in the February presidential election, is challenging the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Bola Tinubu.
He alleged that INEC manipulated the presidential election in favour of Mr Tinubu.
Specifically, Mr Uzoukwu said electoral documents concerning the polls in Rivers and Sokoto States have been inaccessible from INEC.
For Sokoto State, Mr Uzoukwu said the INEC officials demanded N1.5 million fee to process the documents.
“A typical example is that of Rivers State, where the (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner boldly told us they do not have any form EC8 to give us,” Mr Uzoukwu said.
The lawyer recalled two previous rulings of the court, directing the electoral umpire to grant access to Labour Party for the inspection of electoral documents like the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines that were deployed for the conduct of the presidential poll.
The Court of Appeal had on March 3 and 8 directed INEC to make available certified true copies of result sheets and other data obtained from the BVAS machines to aid the petitioner’s case.
Mr Uzoukwu further recalled five separate letters were written to INEC chairman, Yakubu Mahmood, requesting that access be granted to inspect and obtain relevant electoral documents to strengthen the petitioner’s suit at the court.
After listening to all parties in the petition, the court adjourned proceedings until 19 May.
The panel’s chairman, Mr Tsammani, asked lawyers in the suit to respond to all pending applications before the next adjourned date.
Mr Tsammani said the pre-hearing session would last 14 days from the day of its commencement.
The court began its pre-hearing session on 8 May.
