Tension As Court Okays Inspection Of Presidential Election Materials

<h4>Tension As Court Okays Inspection Of Presidential Election Materials<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p><strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;">OpenLife Nigeria<&sol;a><&sol;strong> reports that tension has enveloped the political landscape as candidate of the Labour Party&comma; LP&comma; Mr Peter Obi&comma; on Friday&comma; secured leave of the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja to have access to all the sensitive materials the Independent National Electoral Commission&comma; INEC&comma; deployed for the conduct of the presidential election that held on February 25&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The appellate court&comma; which will sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal&comma; equally ordered the electoral body to also grant the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party&comma; PDP&comma; access to the election materials&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;This development has sent jitters into the camp of the All Progressives Congress&comma; APC whose candidate&comma; Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission&comma; INEC&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;A panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh made the orders after it heard two separate ex-parte applications the two aggrieved presidential candidates filed alongside their political parties&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Cited as Respondents in the matter were INEC&comma; the acclaimed winner of the presidential election&comma; Bola Tinubu&comma; as well as his party&comma; the All Progressives Congress&comma; APC&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Both applications were predicated on <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;vanguardngr&period;com&sol;">Section146 &lpar;1&rpar; of the Electoral Act 2022&comma; Paragraph 47 &lpar;1&comma; 2 &amp&semi;3&rpar; of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022&comma;<&sol;a> as well as under the inherent jurisdiction of the Court as referenced by Section 6 &lpar;6&rpar; A &amp&semi; B of the 1999 Constitution&comma; as amended&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;While Obi&comma; in his application that was moved by his team of lawyers led by Mr Alex Ejesieme&comma; SAN&comma; sought six principal reliefs&comma; on the other hand&comma; Atiku’s lawyer&comma; Mr Adedamola Faloku&comma; sought seven prayers from the tribunal&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Specifically&comma; the applicants urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents in its custody that were used for the presidential election&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;They maintained that the requested documents would aid their petition against the outcome of the presidential contest that was declared in favour of the candidate of the APC&comma; Tinubu&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;It will be recalled that INEC had declared Tinubu of the APC as the winner of the presidential poll&comma; ahead of 17 other candidates that contested the election&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;According to INEC&comma; Tinubu scored a total of 8&comma;794&comma;726 votes to defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6&comma;984&comma;520 votes and Obi of the LP who came third with a total of 6&comma;101&comma;533 votes&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Both PDP and LP had since rejected the outcome of the election and vowed to challenge it in court&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;