· We have nothing to hide, Commission assures LP
With barely ten days remaining for any aggrieved political party and presidential candidate to officially file its case challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election, the Independent National electoral Commission (INEC) has finally bowed to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal ruling that it allow political parties access to inspect the election material as requested, as it has commenced the process with a meeting on Monday with the 60-man legal team of the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
This is even as the Independent National electoral Commission (INEC) has assured the team that it will make all required materials available for its inspection, stressing that it has nothing to hide.
It would be recalled that INEC had earlier vowed that it will not allow aggrieved political parties and individuals seeking to have access to the Commission’s Backend Server or Cloud for whatsoever reason.
INEC National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said while appearing on Channels Television programme, Sunday Politics, which was monitored from Abuja on Sunday night, that the Commission will not allow the public access to its Backend Server or Cloud.
According to Okoye, “INEC will not allow the political parties to make the rules of the elections in Nigeria as the Commission is the only body in Nigeria that has the constitutional rights to make the guidelines for our elections. Political parties cannot dictate the rules. That will not happen. We cannot allow them to inspect our Backend Server or INEC Cloud, that will not happen.”
But on a reversal note, INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu said the Commission will granted the Labour Party (LP) access to the election materials used during the February 25, 2023 presidential and the National Assembly elections.
Yakubu gave the assurance when he met with the 60 man Labour Party legal team, led by Dr Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), on Monday when they met and agreed on the modalities for the inspection of the election materials.
The LP had rejected the results of the presidential election, which produced the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the president-elect.
Earlier, the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal held at the Appeal Court, had last week granted leave to the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to have access to all the sensitive materials used by INEC in the February 25 elections.
But INEC filed a counter affidavit, requesting that Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) needed to be reconfigured ahead of the governorship and State Assembly polls.
Addressing the legal team, Professor Yakubu assured further the commission will speedily direct its Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) to make available for inspection all material at its offices upon request by the
He said, “INEC has nothing to hide. Documents available at the headquarters will be given immediately. We are meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners today and we will discuss how other documents at the state level could also be made available to you speedily.
“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 ECD A, which is the collation at the national collection 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 that we are asking 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 this document 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. Now the meeting will be between our technical people and you will just work things out. So that whatever we need to facilitate as a commission so that you get this document that you require as a matter of urgency, I want to assure you that you will get them as a matter of urgency. Let me reassure you again, whatever you require for the prosecution, we will make this information available.”
In his remarks, leader of LP legal team, Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, expressed concerns that the commission was yet to release any document for inspection, with barely ten day remaining to file the legal charges at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal
He said, “We are here because we have not received any electoral stocks for inspection on behalf of our clients, and as you all know, election petition is time sensitive. We have 21 days to file a petition on behalf of our clients. Out of that 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 a documents apart from that. The Court of Appeal made an order on the 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.”
Asked what if INEC fails to release all the required documents as declared by the National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voer Education Commission, Uzoukwu said, “That 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 noted.