The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday, withdrew a fresh application they filed to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to allow their agents to participate in the process of sorting out ballot papers that were used for the presidential election that held on February 25.
Both PDP and Atiku, who are separately challenging the outcome of the election that was declared in favour of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, told the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, that they were no longer interested in the application.
Vanguard learned that the decision of Atiku who came second at the presidential election, to withdraw the application, was a fallout of a meeting his legal team held with the leadership of the electoral body on Tuesday. We filed the application owing to challenges and administrative bottlenecks we encountered at the INEC office when we went for access to the election materials as ordered by the court.
“However, before the application dated March 13 could be slated for hearing, INEC, on its own, called our legal team for a meeting. “It was at that meeting which held yesterday (Tuesday) that all the grey areas were sorted out, with INEC, pledging to allow our agents to observe the process of sorting out some of the electoral materials we requested for, especially the ballot papers.
“Since that was primarily our prayer in the fresh application we filed, we felt that it would not be necessary to proceed with the hearing. So, to save judicial time, we filed a notice of discontinuance which was accordingly granted”, a member of Atiku’s legal team, who did not want his name mentioned because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, told Vanguard. Following the withdrawal of the application, Justice Joseph Ikyegh-led three-member panel struck it out.
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