The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 general election, Atiku Abubakar, says, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has refused to make the certified true copies of electoral materials available to him despite paying the sum of N6.9 million.
TheHintsNews reports that Atiku and PDP, in their joint petition marked; CA/PEPC/05/2023, are challenging the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election.
At the resumed hearing on Wednesday, Atiku informed the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja of their inability to get the certified true copies of the electoral documents they needed to tender in their petition against Tinubu’s election, despite payment of N6.69 million as demanded by INEC.
The former Vice President, through his counsel, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), however told the tribunal that they hope to get the materials by Thursday.
His words: “We had a challenge with some of the documents we have applied for and paid for from INEC.
“Thank God, counsel to the first respondent (INEC), Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) promised to cooperate with us and we have sent a letter to him highlighting the remnants of the documents which we are in need of.
“He told us that some of the documents are not in Abuja. We paid N6.69 million for the certified true copies of the documents. We hope to get the documents by Thursday.”
The Court, however, admitted Form EC8Bs from ten Local Government Areas of Kogi State, which were tendered by the petitioners and marked them as exhibit PW1- PW10.
But INEC that conducted the election, Tinubu and the APC, who are the first to third respondents in the petition objected to the tendering of the documents and reserved their reasons to the final stage of address.
