Labour party legal team meets INEC over election materials as Yakubu says commission has nothing to hide

The legal team of the Labour Party is currently in a meeting with officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja over the inspection of electoral materials used for the February 25 presidential poll.

The meeting with INEC officials which is being held at the Commission’s national headquarters is to start the process of inspection of electoral materials used for the election.

The head of the Labour party legal team, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, led 60 lawyers to discuss the modalities for obtaining the documents and are expected to brief journalists after the meeting.

INEC has nothing to hide

Meanwhile, INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu has assured the Labour Party’s Legal Team that the Commission will provide all the documents it requested to prosecute its case.

• Yakubu said, “INEC has nothing to hide. Documents available at the HQ 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.”

For the record

• Recall that on March 1, 2023, INEC declared the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
• The Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, in his pronouncement said that the former Lagos state governor polled total votes of 8,794,726 to defeat his closest rival and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, who scored 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of Labour party who polled 6,101,533 votes.
• The presidential candidate of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso came a distant fourth with total votes of 1,496,687 votes.
• However, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, in separate press conferences rejected the results of the election and the collation process, saying that they won the election. They have both headed to the court to seek legal redress.
• INEC has faced a lot of criticisms over its failure to upload the results of the presidential election from all the polling units across the states of the federation to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV) on election day.
• This made agents of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party and some others, stage a walkout from the National Collation Centre in Abuja in protest against the collation and results announced by the commission.
• Despite the court ruling which granted the PDP and Labour party access to inspect sensitive electoral materials including the BVAS, used for the February 25 presidential election, INEC is yet to allow the parties to have access to the materials.
• INEC had sort and got the permission of the Court of Appeal to reconfigure the BVAS used in the presidential election for the governorship and state assembly elections.
• The commission has however assured the Labour Party that the information on the BVAS would be backed up for their inspection and has now promised that all documents requested by the party will be made readily available to the party

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