Legal Battle Begins As Court Grants Peter Obi, Atiku Access To Election Materials

The Court of Appeal Friday in Abuja granted the reliefs sought by the candidates of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, and the People Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, to inspect election materials for last Saturday’s contentious presidential election.

Both Peter Obi and Atiku rejected the outcome of the election which was held alongside the national assembly elections.

iexclusivenews had reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, winner of the election.

On Wednesday morning, INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu announced that Tinubu had received 8,794,726 votes, defeating Atiku, who received 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of the LP, who received 6,101,533 votes.

In order to request access to all of the election materials held by INEC, both the LP and PDP candidates 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.

Peter Obi’s team of lawyers is led by Alex Ejesieme(SAN), sought six principal reliefs, while Adedamola Faloku (SAN) who is leading Atiku’s team sought seven prayers from the tribunal.

According to Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Paragraph 47 (1, 2 & 3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, and the inherent jurisdiction of the Court as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, they specifically requested full delivery and inspection of all election materials to support their claim.

After carefully deliberating, the appellate court panel presided over by Justice Joseph Ikyegh issued the orders after hearing each of the two ex parte applications separately.It ordered the INEC to give the applicants full access to the election materials, including sensitive materials and all other materials.