Election 2023: We’ve nothing to hide, we’ll make documents available – INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is willing to make available all necessary documents on the 25 February presidential election for inspection by interested parties.
Mahmood Yakubu, the Chairman, INEC, said this when he received a team of lawyers from the Labour Party (LP) led by Livy Uzoukwu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), in Abuja on Monday.
Mr Yakubu acknowledged the receipt of a letter from the LP dated 6 March, notifying it that the team would visit for inspection of election materials.
He said that the letter also requested the commission to get in touch with its Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) across the 36 states and the FCT to make the documents available for the prosecution of the LP’s petition.
Mr Yakubu said that INEC had scheduled a virtual meeting with all the RECs to discuss among other issues, the matter of providing Certified True Copies (CTCs) not only to the LP but to all other litigants.
“ I want to assure you that the commission will not hide any document from anybody and will make available any document that they have requested.
“Please be assured that INEC has nothing to hide; whatever you are asking for will be made available to you.
There are two categories of documents that are in possession of the headquarters of INEC. We will easily make these documents available to you.
Specifically the EC8Ds from the states and the EC8DA, which is the collation at the national collation centre by the commission itself.
“The EC8DA, the declaration, so many documents, a total of I think 39 documents, this we can easily certify and give you almost immediately,’’ he said.
Mr Yakubu said other documents being sought for were at the states level, saying that INEC would work out a schedule to know when the team would visit the states ,so as to easily facilitate not just certification of documents, but also the inspection requested for each of the documents.
“The other one is accreditation data from the back end. This will also be made available to you. Remember that the accreditation data covers over 176,000 polling units.
“We have to print them, physically certify them, and give them to you so the tall and short of what I am saying is that you will get this document speedily,” he said.
Mr Yakubu urged the LP legal team to interface with INEC’s legal team immediately to work out things.
Speaking, Mr Uzoukwu, Lead Council to the LP Presidential Legal Team, said the visit was to prepare ground for the inspection of the materials for the presidential election.
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