By Deborah Onyofufeke
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday, withdrew a fresh application they filed requesting the Court of Appeal to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to permit their agents in the sorting process of the ballot papers that were used for the presidential election that held on February 25.
At the mention of the motion ex-parte, marked: CA/PEC/10M/2023, the former Vice President, through his team of lawyers led by Mr. Joe Kyari Gadzama, SAN, told the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, that they were no longer interested in the application and that a notice of discontinuance had been filed to this effect.
The opposition party, PDP, and Atiku, had in separate applications, challenged the outcome of the election that was declared in favour of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
The withdrawal of the application by Atiku followed a fallout of a meeting his legal team held with the leadership of the electoral body on Tuesday.
“We filed the application owing to challenges and administrative bottlenecks we encountered at the INEC office when we went for access to the election materials as ordered by the court.
“However, before the application dated March 13 could be slated for hearing, INEC, on its own, called our legal team for a meeting.
“It was at that meeting which held yesterday (Tuesday) that all the grey areas were sorted out, with INEC, pledging to allow our agents to observe the process of sorting out some of the electoral materials we requested for, especially the ballot papers.
“Since that was primarily our prayer in the fresh application we filed, we felt that it would not be necessary to proceed with the hearing. So, to save judicial time, we filed a notice of discontinuance which was accordingly granted”, one of the legal counsels disclosed.
Meanwhile, following the withdrawal of the application, the Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led three-member panel struck it out.
The PDP Presidential candidate who polled second position at the February 25 elections had in the withdrawn application, predicated on 11 grounds, maintained that it was necessary for agents of his party to be present during the sorting out of the electoral materials he would need to prepare a petition he intends to lodge against the outcome of the presidential election.
He said there was need for his agents to observe/participate in the sorting of materials he requested for in all the offices of INEC nationwide, in line with the ex-parte order the court made on March 3.
The tribunal had in the said order, directed INEC to allow the Applicants, Atiku and PDP, to inspect, scan, carry out forensic examination and analysis of the ballot papers, data form, BVAS/and or card readers, including photocopying of the ballot papers, information stored in the computer server/IREV.
Atiku argued that allowing the agents of his party to be on ground while the materials are sorted out, would ensure transparency in the process and guarantee that the ballot papers would not be tampered with.
It will be recalled that though the court ordered INEC to grant both Atiku and his counterpart in the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, who came third in the election, access to the electoral materials, however, in a subsequent order it made on March 8, the panel gave the electoral body the nod to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines it used for the presidential election.
The court held that stopping INEC from reconfiguring the BVAS would adversely affect the conduct of Governorship and State Assembly elections billed for Saturday.
