The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has told the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja of his predicament in accessing electoral documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

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 Tinubu.

At the resumed hearing of Mr Obi’s petition on Wednesday, his lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu, 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).”

Specifically, Uzoukwu said electoral documents concerning the polls in Rivers and Sokoto States have been inaccessible from INEC.

For Sokoto State, Uzoukwu said INEC officials demanded N1.5 million fee to process the documents.

“A typical example is that of Rivers State, where (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner boldly told us they do not have any form EC8 to give us,” 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 tender same to aid the petitioner’s case.

Uzoukwu further recalled that 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.

INEC denies allegation

Abubakar Mahmoud, INEC’s lawyer, expressed the electoral umpire’s readiness to cooperate with all parties in the petitions and the court.

Mahmoud said Obi’s legal team declined to attend a meeting that was called to streamline issues around documents to be tendered before the court.

“We agreed to meet on Monday and Tuesday (15 and 16 May). But on Monday, 15 May, I received a call that the Labour Party legal team had not turned up at the venue for the inspection of the documents,” Mahmoud told the court.

He clarified that LP was given some electoral documents in Rivers, “but they insisted on collecting all the documents that were required.

“The commission has not refused to produce any document,” Mahmoud said.

But Uzoukwu said his team did not stage a walkout from the meeting.

Speaking in the same vein, APC’s lead lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, aligned with INEC’s position concerning access to electoral documents.

Fagbemi said he would not object to official documents tendered from INEC during the hearing of the substantive petition.

“All public documents coming from INEC and duly certified will not be objected to, but other documents may be objected to with reasons given and arguments presented at the end of the day before judgement.

“We are ready and willing to cooperate with the court,” Fagbemi assured.

Similarly, Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, said he had no issues accessing documents from the electoral umpire.

“We will reserve our objection to documents until the end of the trial,” Olanipekun said.

After listening to all parties in the petition, the court adjourned proceedings until 19 May.

The panel’s chairman, Tsammani, asked lawyers in the suit to respond to all pending applications before the next adjourned date.

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.

 

PT