"Peter Obi And His Party Have Declined To Pay N1.5 Million To Obtain The Sought Paper" INEC

Independent Electoral Commission (INEC)

INEC informs the tribunal that Peter Obi and his party have declined to pay N1.5 million to obtain the sought papers

The Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, have been denied access to the records they are demanding, according to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), which has provided an explanation.

Abubakar Mahmoud, an attorney for INEC, claimed that Obi and LP refused to pay the N1.5 million sought to access the requested records during a presentation at the presidential election petitions court on Wednesday, May 17.

Uzoukwu testified that INEC "stubbornly refused to produce 70% of the requested electoral documents" to the five-member court panel chaired by Haruna Tsammani.

Particularly, Uzoukwu claimed that the voting records for the states of Rivers and Sokoto had been unavailable. Uzoukwu claimed that the INEC authorities in Sokoto state requested a cost of N1.5 million to process the documents.

The resident electoral commissioner of Rivers state brashly informed us that they did not have any form EC8A to provide us. This is a usual situation, the senior attorney remarked.

INEC's attorney responded to the claim by stating: "We promised to meet on Monday and Tuesday (15 and 16 May). However, I learned on Monday, May 15, that the Labour Party legal team had not shown up at the location for the review of the documents."

In Rivers, the LP was handed some election documents, but they persisted on obtaining all the necessary paperwork. No document has been withheld from production by the commission.