Tribunal: Atiku’s lawyers to re-present rejected requests

A three-man panel of the court, led by Justice Abdul Aboki, had in the ruling granted them access to inspect the materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission for the conduct of the February 23 poll. The court permitted them to obtain certified true copies of the materials from INEC. But the court rejected some of their vital prayers, including requests to have access to card reader data, and have other electoral documents scanned, photocopied, and subjected to forensic analysis and examination. The applicants, aggrieved by INEC’s declaration of President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the election, had applied for access to the electoral materials to enable them to challenge the outcome of the poll at the tribunal. Speaking to our correspondent on Thursday, a senior member of the applicants’ legal team, Chief Chris Uche SAN, said it was unnecessary to appeal against the portions of the ruling refusing some of their requests. Uche, “Filing an appeal against those portions of the ruling is totally unnecessary. “This is because we at liberty to make the requests again at the pre-hearing stage after we must have filed our petition.” It was learnt that the court’s order permitting Atiku and his party to inspect the electoral materials in custody of INEC would be served on the commission on Friday. They have to serve the order on INEC before they can begin the inspection through which they would gather the materials need to back their petition. They have 21 days to file the petition. The period started counting from when INEC declared the results of the election on February 27.]]>