Disputed Feb. 25 presidential poll: PDP, LP get Appeal Court’s nod to inspect election materials

After instituting a suit against INEC’s declaration of APC’s Bola Tinubu as President-elect, the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Friday granted separate applications of the PDP and Labour Party to inspect election materials used in last Saturday’s election.

The appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, granted the applications after separately hearing the two ex-parte applications.

It ordered the INEC to allow the applicants access to the election materials in full including and specifically the sensitive materials and all other materials thereto.

Persecondnews reports that Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, and Labour Party’s Peter Obi had sought relief from the court to inspect the materials.

The two candidates had approached the court and filed ex-parte motions at the Presidential Election Court at the Court of Appeal, listing INEC, Tinubu and the APC as the first, second and third respondents.

They requested that they be allowed to inspect all the election materials in the custody of the INEC.

On March 1, INEC had presented a Certificate of Return to Tinubu and his running mate, Sen. Kashim Shettima for winning the election with about 8.6 million votes, beating Atiku and Obi to the second and third positions.

They had already rejected the polls as flawed and fraught with rigging and irregularities.