Post election litigations: Peter Obi’s legal team meets INEC
…Attempt to hoard election materials, a national calamity — LP’s Lead Counsel
Joel Oladele, Abuja
As part of efforts to challenge the outcome of the just concluded presidential election in court, the legal team of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi has met with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to inspect the election materials.
Receiving the team at the INEC’s national headquarters on Monday, the Chairman of the Commision, Professor Mahmood Yakubu assured them that all the documents they have earlier requested will be made available as INEC has nothing to hide.
He added that there will be a virtual meeting with all the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) scheduled for 3pm on Monday to discuss how other materials at the state level can also be made available not only to the Labour Party, but to all other litigants as well.
Recall that Prof. Mahmood had at the early hours of Wednesday, March 1 declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
He defeated Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party’s Obi who came second and third respectively at the keenly contested poll. The declaration has since been generating controversies in the political atmosphere of the country.
The Court of Appeal had made an order on March 3 for INEC to release the election documents to the litigants for inspection which according to the legal team, they were yet to receive a couple of days after the judgement, hence, the need to meet the electoral umpire.
The INEC Chairman therefore appealed to the legal team of the Labour party while suggesting that they should interface with the legal team of the Commission immediately to work out the modalities in making the documents available.
“A meeting has been scheduled with all the resident electoral commissioners and is going to be a virtual meeting at 3pm, today, which we will discuss among other issues, this matter of providing CTCs not only to the Labour Party, but to all other litigants as well.
“I want to assure you that the Commission will not hide any document from anybody and will make available any document that they have requested.
“There are two categories of documents, those that are in possession of the headquarters of INEC, we will easily make these documents available to you. Specifically, the EC8Ds from the states and the ECDA, which is the collation at the national collation centre by the commission itself.
“The EC8E, the declaration, so many, a total of, I think 39 documents, this we can easily certify and give you almost immediately.
“As for other documents you asked for, they are at state level, so we need to work out the schedule so that we know when your team is going to which state and on which date so that we can easily facilitate not just certification of documents, but also the inspection that you requested for each of these documents.
“The other one is accreditation data from the back end. This will also be made available to you. Remember that the accreditation data covers over 176,000 polling units. We have to print them, physically certify them, and give them to you ,so the tall and short of what I’m saying is that you will get these documents speedily.
“They will also make arrangements and notify our Resident Electoral Commissioner of your intended visit so that these documents will be made available to you those that are at the level, including access to inspection of any category of materials.
“So I crave your indulgence to suggest that let your team interface with the legal team of the commission immediately. So you work these things out and then we make all the documents available to you.
“But please be assured, the lead counsel that INEC has nothing to hide. Whatever you’re asking for will be made available to you.
“So I want to thank you for coming. Now the meeting will be between our technical people and you will just work things out. Let me reassure you again, whatever you require for the prosecution, we will make this information available.” Mahmood assured.
Addressing journalists after the meeting, the Lead Counsel of the Labour Party legal team, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN) said they have no time to waste as election petitions are time sensitive and out of the 21 days the constitution provides to file a petition, they have just 10 more days to go.
“We are here because we have not received any electoral stocks for inspection on behalf of our clients, and as you all know, election petitions are time sensitive. We have 21 days to file a petition on behalf of our clients. Out of those 21 days we probably have about 10 days to go and up till now we have not received any documents.
“We have written to INEC requesting for documents apart from that. The Court of Appeal made an order on March 3, to INEC to release those documents to us but we haven’t received any hence we requested for a meeting with the chairman of the commission.
“He graciously granted that audience within a very short notice, and he has given us assurance, concrete assurance on record that all documents we require will be made available and if possible, some of them will be made available to us today.
“So we believe that that will happen and we are leaving here rest assured that by the time we leave INEC premises at least we will leave with some documents, the rest can then come from tomorrow and so on and so forth.
“We are very much bothered and I made that point when we met with the chairman that not only that our clients are bothered and agitated but also we members of the legal council are bothered, members of Labour Party are bothered, their supporters are bothered and restive.
“In fact, it has taken a lot to calm them down to exercise patience that we are going to get the documents because the court of the land has ordered the documents to be given to us.
“Well, some documents will come from the state level but we do not think it will take eternity for those documents to come. Meanwhile, there are those that are domiciled here at the headquarters. Those ones we can go away with today.”
When asked what will happen if INEC fails in making all the needed documents available, Uzoukwu said it will create the impression that INEC is deliberately frustrating the legal team and that will be a national calamity.
“It will be a national calamity. Why do I say that? Not making the documents available will create the impression that INEC is deliberately frustrating us. That’s just the impression it will create to make sure that we cannot prosecute this petition. But listening to the Chairman a short while ago and all assurances, I want to give him or we want to give him the benefit of the doubt that we will get some of them today.
“At least if we get some of them today that is indicative that we’ll get some other documents from tomorrow, next tomorrow to enable us file this petition. Having said that, the way and manner the chairman spoke, I’m confident that he will keep to his words.” he affirmed.
Also reacting, the ObiDatti Chief Spokesman, Tanko Yunusa said he’s happy the INEC Chairman responded positively to the letter earlier written to the commision where it was stated that the party will mobilise its loyalists for a nationwide protest if INEC doesn’t cooperate. However, after meeting with the Chairman, they will listen to instructions from their legal team on what to do next.
“Remember we made a press conference citing that we will not fail to mobilise our members to come out to march on the streets of INEC and offices of INEC nationwide. And graciously the Chairman of INEC having read that particular statement has granted this opportunity to come into his office and liaise with him and he has assured the team of lawyers that they are going to present these documents.
“So we want to wait and see the responses of our legal team. It is the legal team that will give us the marching order. When they are satisfied with what they have received from INEC so that our members nationwide and worldwide will be satisfied that we are doing our job and they are ready to prosecute this case accordingly,” Yinusa stated.
