The Edo election petition tribunal on Monday granted the PDP and its candidate, Asue Ighodalo request to inspect all election materials used for the Sept. 21 governorship election in the state.
The chairman of the tribunal, Justice W.I. Kpochi, granted the order in an ex parte motion filed by Mr Ighodalo and the party.
The ex parte motion dated Sept. 27 was filed by Rotimi.O. Ogunseso, SAN, with Seun Olusuyi, counsel to the applicants.
The petition and affidavits were sworn to by Osasere Adagbonyin.
In the petition, all the prayers of the petitioners were granted by the tribunal.
The certified true copy of the order signed by the secretary of the tribunal, Mauzu Ibrahim, ordered INEC to produce and make available all the materials used for the election.
The documents listed by the applicants and granted by the tribunal are all forms EC8A, forms EC8B, forms EC8C, forms EC8D, forms EC8E, forms EC25B, forms EC25B(i) used at the election.
Also granted are all forms EC40A, forms EC40C, forms EC40G and EC40G(i) used at the gubernatorial election.
The court also ordered INEC to make all the polling unit results , Forms EC8A uploaded to its IREV portal from the polling unit, list of accredited agents of all the political parties that participated in the gubernatorial election.
Others are, voters register for each of the polling units, total number of BVAS machines deployed to the poling units, serial number of each BVAS machine matched against the specific polling units.
Other materials to be inspected included a statement and report of the number of accredited voters recorded on and extracted directly from the BVAS machines used at all the polling units for the election.
The tribunal further ordered INEC to produce and make available to the applicants record and list of polling units where election results were not uploaded to INEC IREV portal as at Sept. 22 when the results of the election were announced.
It also directed that record of the posting of INEC adhoc staff for the 4,519 polling units, number of Permanent Voters Cards,( PVCs) collected in each polling unit be made available to the applicants.
Speaking to journalists at INEC office in Benin, Olusegun Jolaawo, SAN, said they were at INEC Office in furtherance of the court order and the applicants’ attempt to get the electoral materials inspected.
According to Mr Jolaawo, we came here today in furtherance of the tribunal order we obtained on Sept 29, 2024 and to get materials to fresh up our petition.
“Now, when we got here today, we were not able to get an audience with the REC but we were able to see the head of legal unit, who told us that they were preparing a schedule for our inspection.
“The risk involved is obvious to everybody, and the time expires on Saturday for us to file our petition and today is Monday,” he said.
(NAN)
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