INEC STILL IN COURT WITH GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS APPROACHING
Nigeria’s gubernatorial elections to take place on 18th March; Peter Obi’s Lawyers say INEC seeking to vary the order of the court
While senatorial Elections are going on in Lrc gubernatorial elections in Nigeria are also about to commence. The 2023 Lagos State gubernatorial election will take place on 18 March 2023, to elect the Governor of Lagos State, concurrent with elections to the Lagos State House of Assembly as well as twenty-seven other gubernatorial elections and elections to all other state houses of assembly. The election to be held two weeks after the presidential election and National Assembly elections. Incumbent APC Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu is eligible to run for re-election and has been renominated by his party.
Meanwhile the governorship elections initially slated for last week Saturday the 11th of March 2023 but postponed by Nigeria's electoral commission to this weekend the 18th of March 2023, citing limited time to reset its voting machines nearly two weeks after a controversial presidential vote was disputed by opposition parties. "This decision has not been taken lightly but it is necessary to ensure that there is adequate time to back up the data stored on the over 176,000 BVAS machines from the Presidential and National Assembly elections held on 25th February 2023 and then to reconfigure them for the Governorship and State Assembly elections," electoral body INEC said in a statement late Wednesday.
Interestingly, amidst the preparations for the forthcoming gubernatorial elections, Inec still has itself to defend in court as the case in court hasn’t come to a final judgment yet.
According to Business Day,
The legal team of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi have vowed to take action against the the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu following the deliberate refusal of the Commission to allow the legal team of the LP candidate inspect election materials in line with the order of the Court of Appeal. The court in the ruling last Wednesday refused to grant a request by INEC seeking to vary the order of the court granting access to Obi as well as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar to inspect the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and other election materials.
The panel in the ruling said the application was unnecessary because the court never granted permission to Atiku, Obi, and their parties to scientifically access and inspect INEC’s database. The tribunal said the apprehension being expressed by INEC, which includes the possible revelation of the identities of voters and their voting choices, was unnecessary because no applicant was granted leave to access ÏNEC’s data base. Ruling on INEC’s motion, the 3-man panel held that the electoral umpire’s application is without merit and is refused, noting that all the orders allowing Obi to inspect election materials stand. INEC, in apparent reaction to the ruling, stated that the commission was not against litigants inspecting election materials, while reaffirming that it will continue to grant all litigants access to the materials they require to pursue their cases in court.
But speaking to newsmen on Saturday, a member of Obi’s legal team, Alex Ejesieme SAN, said that the electoral umpire has not granted them access to election materials. He accused INEC of deliberately trying to delay Obi’s legal team from instituting a petition against the presidential election as prescribed by the Electoral Act, adding that the electoral umpire knows that accessing the election materials will expose alleged ballot rigging in the election. The SAN said the legal team was ready to take necessary measures for the commission to comply with the order of the court.
“We will take steps to mount pressure on them to allow us to have copies of the electoral materials in line with the order of the court of Appeal,” Ejesieme added.
While the case goes on in court and Nigerians decide who their governor would be, we on undaunted will keep a close look to any recent developments.
