How Atiku, INEC reached agreement on inspection of ballot papers
Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), have reached an agreement, based on the former’s request to witness the sorting of ballot papers used in the February 25 presidential poll.
This was disclosed, allegedly, by a member of Atiku’s legal team, according to a report. On Wednesday, Atiku’s lawyers withdrew their application for an order mandating INEC to allow them participate in the exercise.
Indicating their resolve to withdraw the suit, a member of the legal team Kyari Gadzama, told the court that the matter had been resolved.
A source in the team reportedly said that the application was filed owing to initial “challenges and administrative bottlenecks we encountered at the INEC office when we went for access to the election materials as ordered by the court.”
He added, “However, before the application dated March 13 could be slated for hearing, INEC, on its own, called our legal team for a meeting. It was at that meeting which was held yesterday (Tuesday) that all the grey areas were sorted out, with INEC, pledging to allow our agents to observe the process of sorting out some of the electoral materials we requested for, especially the ballot papers.
“Since that was primarily our prayer in the fresh application we filed, we felt that it would not be necessary to proceed with the hearing. So, to save judicial time, we filed a notice of discontinuance which was accordingly granted.”
Atiku is challenging APC’s candidate Bola Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the poll.
