The Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) has claimed that the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, have refused to pay the N1.5million demanded to access the documents they are requesting.
INEC’s counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud, revealed this at the sitting of the presidential election petitions court on Wednesday.
Mahmoud was responding to claims by LP’s counsel, Levy Uzoukwu, that the commission has refused to release necessary documents, which they requested to present as evidence in the suit challenging the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
Uzoukwu told the Haruna Tsammani-led panel that INEC “stubbornly refused to produce 70 percent of the electoral documents that were requested”.
Specifically, Uzoukwu noted that documents concerning the elections in Rivers and Sokoto states have been inaccessible.
For Sokoto State, Uzoukwu said the INEC officials demanded a N1.5 million fee to process the documents.
Responding to the allegation, INEC’s lawyer said Obi’s legal team declined to attend a meeting that was called to streamline issues around documents to be tendered before the court.
