The Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council reaffirmed on Sunday that unless the Independent National Election Commission gives LP’s lawyers access to records from the contested February 25 presidential election, its supporters would not abandon their planned statewide protest.
Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, and the nominee of the Labour Party, who received 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes respectively, were defeated by Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, who received 8,794,726 votes.
Both Obi and Atiku, who were unhappy with the outcome, sought the election tribunal to request permission to examine the voting equipment.
A few days later, the Court of Appeal in Abuja granted their petitions for access to inspect the election materials, but the commission refused to comply.
In order to reconfigure the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System devices in time for the March 18 gubernatorial and state assembly polls, INEC obtained a court injunction four days prior to the development.
Yunusa Tanko, the primary spokesman for the Obi campaign committee, insisted there was no turning back from mobilizing their followers to occupy INEC offices around the country.
Tanko charged INEC with breaching the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal’s directive. In order to reconfigure the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System devices in time for the March 18 gubernatorial and state assembly polls, INEC obtained a court injunction four days prior to the development.
Yunusa Tanko, the primary spokesman for the Obi campaign committee, insisted there was no turning back from mobilizing their followers to occupy INEC offices around the country.
Tanko charged INEC with defying the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal’s directive to give Obi and the party access to the authenticated copies of the materials used to conduct the election. Get the certified authentic copies of the materials used to conduct the poll for Obi and the party.
We purposefully delayed setting a date for the demonstration so INEC would have until Monday to respond to us.
“But by the grace of God, our followers will take to the streets when they (INEC) fail to do what they are supposed to do. There’s no turning back, he declared.
The Chief Press Secretary, Rotimi Oyekanmi, declined to respond when asked about whether INEC will agree to the request of Obi’s legal team.
In a similar vein, Muyiwa Adejobi, the force’s public relations officer, claimed to be ignorant of any correspondence between the LP and the police to that effect.
Yet he assured our journalist that he will contact her.
The police spokesman had not provided an update as of the time this report was filed regarding their response to the anticipated demonstration.