Nigeria: Like Atiku, Obi Accuses INEC of Denying Him Access to Electoral Documents

Mr Obi's allegation comes about two weeks after Atiku of the PDP accused INEC of frustrating his access to electoral documents.

The Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, on Monday, alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) refused to provide the documents they asked for.

Mr Obi and the LP are petitioners in the petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023 challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu.

Respondents are Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) president Bola Tinubu and Vice president Kashim Shettima and All Progressives Congress (APC).

The LP and Obi told the Presidential Election Petition Court that they could not proceed with the hearing in their case due to INEC 's refusal to provide them with the documents they asked for.

This came about two weeks after Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic (PDP), similarly accused INEC of frustrating his access to vital electoral documents to enable him to prove his case against President Tinubu.

LP's lawyer, Jibrin Okutepa, told the court Monday that all the documents his client asked for from INEC were not provided.

"We are bringing this to your notice for your intervention because we have done everything humanly possible.

"This afternoon, INEC released a few IReV reports from Lagos and Gombe.

"These documents were certified since 29 May. We have severally written letters detailing the documents we needed as proof of our petition.

"We have paid for most of these documents," he said.

He further informed the court that it appears that INEC was deliberately delaying proceedings.

Abubakar Mahmoud, a SAN counsel for INEC, told the court that he received a letter dated May 15 from the petitioners and has not received any other letter after that.

"All the documents that the subpoenaed witnesses are tendering were provided by INEC. We never denied the petitioners any document.

"I am a senior counsel and know the importance of this matter. They should stop this lamentation," he said.

Wole Olanipakun, SAN, counsel for Messrs Tinubu and Shettima, promised to ensure that a meeting between senior counsel holds to address the issues raised.

The court urged them to understand better so that the proceeding could go on smoothly as they pledged in their spirit of cooperation.

Another witness testifies

The petitioners, through their counsel, Patrick Ikweato, also a SAN, brought their seventh witness (PW 7) to come and testify.

The subpoenaed witness, Loretta Ogah, is an architect with Amazon Web Services Incorporated (AWS)

At the point of adopting her witness statement on oath, the respondents objected.

Mr Mahmoud told the court that the petitioners just served them with the documents.

"I will not be in the position to examine the witness today, I need to study the documents," he said.

Mr Olanipekun also objected to the adoption of the witness statement.

"We are not saying that the witness should not go on with her evidence," he said.

The petitioners tendered the witness's employment letter by Amazon and her resumé and were admitted in evidence.

Also admitted were six reports showing the health status of the AWS dashboard of cloud services in 33 regions and certificates of compliance.

Meanwhile, the five-member panel led by Haruna Tsammani adjourned until Tuesday for the cross-examination of the witness and further hearing of the petition.

(NAN)

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