The application was rejected when it was withdrawn by the three-person panel headed by Judge Joseph Ikyegh.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been ordered by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Atiku Abubakar, the PDP’s presidential candidate, to permit their agents to take part in the process of sorting out the ballots that were used for the February 25 presidential election. The PDP withdrew a new application they had submitted to compel the INEC to grant their agents access to the ballot sorting process.
PDP and Atiku, who are both contesting the election’s results in their own ways, both informed the Presidential Election Petition Court that they were no longer interested in the appeal and had sent a notice of discontinuation.
Sources claim that Atiku decided to withdraw the application as a consequence of a meeting he and the members of his legal team had with the electoral body’s leadership on Tuesday.
When they attempted to obtain the electoral documents as required by the court, he claimed they ran into difficulties and administrative bottlenecks at the INEC headquarters, which prompted them to submit the motion.
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All of the questions that remained unanswered were resolved during the meeting that took place on Tuesday, and INEC committed to have their agents watch while some of the election materials they asked, particularly the ballots, were sorted.
He said that they thought it would not be necessary to proceed with the hearing as it was essentially their request in the newly submitted application.
The three-member panel chaired by Judge Joseph Ikyegh dismissed the application after it was withheld in the meantime.
Atiku said in his withdrew application—which he based on 11 grounds—that party representatives needed to be present during the organisation of the electoral materials he would need to gather evidence for a challenge he planned to file challenging the results of the presidential election.
According to the ex-parte order the court issued on March 3, he claimed it was necessary for his operatives to witness and take part in the sorting of the papers he demanded in all of INEC’s national offices.
According to Atiku, having representatives from his party present while the materials are sorted through would provide process transparency and ensure that the ballots would not be tampered with.
