Election Petition: Why I withdrew my motion on material inspection — Atiku
Atiku Abubakar, a candidate for president of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), claims that he dropped a motion from the Appeal Court regarding a request to investigate voting equipment since the matter had been overtaken by events.
Abubakar stated in a statement that he withdrew the application since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had already given him access to view the materials.
He said that the clarification was necessary for light of rumours and malicious reporting on the withdrawal of the request for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to permit access to his legal team and the PDP for the review of election-related documents on February 25.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the appellate court approved PDP and Abubakar’s plea for unrestricted access to the INEC records used for the presidential election.
“On March 10, 2023, we filed a motion (number 12M) ex parte and affidavit of urgency to ensure the implementation of the court order.
“The court, however, asked that we put the president-elect, Sen. Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the INEC on notice.
“Consequently, we filed a motion on notice (number 13M) and motion ex parte (number 13MA) for substituted service on Tinubu,” he said.
NAN reports that on Tuesday at a conference meeting between lawyers of the PDP, LP, APC, and INEC, access was eventually granted to the legal team of PDP by INEC,” he said.
Abubakar said when the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, the legal team withdrew the two motions.
He said the motions were withdrawn because access had already been granted on Tuesday to Abubakar and PDP.
