• Friday, March 29, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Labour Party accuses INEC of preventing the inspection of election materials

The Labour Party has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of deliberately preventing the party from inspecting the election materials used for the conduct of the February 25 presidential election, in which the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was declared the winner.

Patrick Abure, the National Chairman of the Labour Party, accused the electoral body during an interview on Channels Television on Friday of not only being uncooperative to the party during its request to inspect the materials but also going against the Appeal Court order that granted the party and other parties contesting the result or otherwise from inspecting the election materials and the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) devices.

Read also: INEC reassures Nigerians of safety of information in BVAS

In his frustration, the Labour Party Chairman voiced his concern, fearing that the evidence to back up their claims could be compromised if the electoral body continued to act uncooperatively.

“In all my interviews, I have always expressed confidence in INEC, but their behavior and the manner in which they handled the last election have destroyed the confidence that I have in INEC completely,” Abure said.

“I want to say that since that order was made, that we should be given the opportunity to inspect election materials, INEC has not allowed us assess till now—we have not been able to inspect materials. Our lawyers have been going there on a daily basis, and our technical experts have been going there on a daily basis, and we have not been allowed access,” he added.