16th March, 2023
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, have withdrawn their application to the Appeal Court to inspect electoral materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the February 25th presidential election.
Although the court granted the request to inspect sensitive electoral materials, including the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines, the team withdrew the motion on Wednesday.
According to Paul Ibe, Atiku’s media adviser, the former Vice President withdrew the request after INEC complied with the court orders.
Ibe said, “…on Tuesday (14 March) at a conference meeting between lawyers of the PDP, LP, APC and INEC, access was eventually granted to the legal team of PDP by INEC.
“When the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, the two motions were withdrawn because they have been overtaken by events since access had already been granted on Tuesday to Atiku and PDP,” he added.
He stated that the clarification was necessary in light of insinuations and misleading reporting about the withdrawal of his legal team’s and the PDP’s application to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to inspect documents related to the Feb. 25 Presidential Election.
“On March 10, 2023, we filed a motion (number 12M) ex parte and affidavit of urgency to ensure the implementation of the court order.
“The court, however, asked that we put the president-elect, Sen. Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the INEC on notice. Consequently, we filed a motion on notice (number 13M) and motion ex parte (number 13MA) for substituted service on Tinubu.
Lawyers of the PDP, LP, APC, and INEC, access was eventually granted to the legal team of PDP by INEC,” he said.