We’ll Make Available All Requested Documents, INEC Assures LP
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured all the political parties, especially the Labour Party, that it would not hide any documents they seek from it.
Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, gave the assurance yesterday, when the legal team of LP led by Dr. Levy Uzoukwu, visited the commission to inspect documents needed to prosecute its case at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
Both the LP and PDP had headed to court to challenge the emergence of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the President-elect.
Yakubu said, “We received a letter from Uzoukwu (SAN) on behalf of the Labour Party. The letter is dated March 6. In the letter, we were served notice that the team will be here on the 7th to inspect the materials.”
The chairman noted that the letter specifically requested the commission to get in touch with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) across the 37 states of the federation to make the documents and information available for the prosecution of their petition.
Yakubu stressed that a virtual meeting had been scheduled with all the RECs at 3pm on yesterday, stressing that the commission would discuss among other issues, one of providing Certified True Copies (CTCs) to the Labour Party and all other litigants as well.
“I want to assure you that the Commission will not hide any document from anybody and will make available any document that they have requested.
“There are two categories of documents: Those that are in possession of the headquarters of INEC, we will easily make these documents available to you. Specifically the EC8D from the states and the ECD A, which is the collation at the National Collection Centre by the commission itself.
“The EC8E, the declaration, so many, a total of, I think 39 documents, this we can easily certify and give you almost immediately. As for other documents that we are asking for, they are at state level,” the Chairman added.
According to him, there was a need to work out a schedule of when the LP team would be visiting the RECs in the states, saying this would allow the commission to easily facilitate certification of documents and also the inspection requested for each of the document.
His words: “The other one is accreditation data from the back end. This will also be made available to you. Remember that the accreditation data covers over 176,000 polling units. We have to print them physically, certify them, and give them to you. So, the tall and short of what I’m saying is that you will get this document speedily.
“They will also make arrangements and notify our Resident Electoral Commissioner of your intended visit so that these documents will be made available to you those that are at the level, including access to inspection of any category of materials.”
LP lead counsel, Uzoukwu, said they were at the commission because they had not received any electoral stocks for inspection on behalf of their client, saying, “As you all know, election petition is time sensitive. We have 21 days to file a petition on behalf of our clients. Out of that 21 days, we probably have about 10 days to go and up till now we have not received any documents.
“We have written to INEC requesting for documents, apart from that, the Court of Appeal made an order on the March 3, to INEC to release those documents to us but we haven’t received any hence we requested for a meeting with the chairman of the commission.”
Uzoukwu noted that the chairman granted the audience within a very short notice, stressing that he also gave them assurances that all documents required would be made available.
