By Gift Habib
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has written to the Independent National Electoral Commission, asking the commission to obey court order and allow him to inspect the election materials used for the February 25 elections.
The letter was signed by his lead counsel, Joe-Kyari Gadzama on Thursday.
The PUNCH reported earlier that the Court of Appeal directed INEC to allow Atiku and his representatives to inspect, scan, make copies, forensically audit and obtain Certified True Copies of all electoral materials used in the conduct of the presidential election.
The court in order number six specifically allowed Atiku to carry out forensic examination/analysis of the BVAS machines/devices and all information stored in the server/IREV/backend/clouds, amongst others.
According to the letter, Atiku’s representatives led by Adedamola Fanokun, (office of the PDP National Legal Adviser) returned to the commission ready to commence inspection, examination and obtaining of the electoral materials as ordered by the court but they were informed at the commission’s legal registry that there was no instruction yet from the commission on the court order.
The letter read in part, “Our clients further requested an audience with the commission’s Director of Litigation to accelerate the process but they were not allowed as they were told by the registry staff that the director was in a meeting. Sadly, these and other efforts by our clients have yielded no result.
“It is disturbing that despite service of the court order on the commission since March 3, 2023, the commission is yet to allow our clients and their representatives to access, inspect and/or obtain the needed electoral materials as ordered by the court despite repeated visits to the commission and follow-up in respect thereof.
“No doubt, the commission is bound by the orders of the court and cannot choose if, when and/or how to comply with the same. The unqualified obligation of the commission, which of course includes INEC officials, is to unhesitatingly comply and give effect to the subsisting order of Court; there is no discretion to exercise here.”
Atiku’s legal team demanded that the commission comply with the subsisting court orders.
Gadzama added, “In the circumstances, we hereby demand that the commission should immediately comply with the subsisting orders of court and in particular, we reiterate the following demands on behalf of our clients: Daily access to all polling documents, voters register, ballot papers and electoral forms/materials for purposes of scanning, forensic audit, expert examination and inspection; Daily access to the BVAS machines/devices and server/IREV/backend/clouds for purposes of forensic examination and analysis; and CTCs of all BVAS accreditation reports, forms EC40A, EC8A, EC8AVP, EC8C, EC8D, EC8E and all other electoral forms/materials on a state by state basis.
“We hope that our demand will receive the prompt positive action that it requires as we will continue to visit the commission on a daily basis.”
Source: The Punch
