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Court grants Tinubu’s request to inspect election material

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The Appeal Court, Abuja, on Wednesday granted the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, access to inspect electoral materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in last month’s election.

Tinubu had in an ex parte application dated March 6 and filed by his lawyer, Akintola Makinde, urged the court to order INEC to allow him to inspect, scan and make photocopies of some of the materials used during the February 25 election.

Read also:NNPP denies congratulating Tinubu, rejects election results

This, according to him, will enable him to prepare his defence on the petitions against his victory in the exercise.

“The materials will be relevant in helping us to prepare our defence and also make comparison with the information contained in INEC’s back-end server,” he added.

At the proceeding, a three-member panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh granted Tinubu ‘s prayers one to four but refused five to six.

Ikyegh, who read the lead judgement, held that there is a substance in the application to enable them to grant the prayers.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on March 1 declared Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 election after polling 8, 794, 726 votes to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and 16 others in the exercise.

The court had on March 3 granted leave to Atiku and the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to inspect the materials used for the election.

The duo alleged that substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 as well as violence and rigging marred the election.

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