Labour Party (LP) has threatened to stage a nationwide protest at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices over the Commission’s refusal to grant them access to inspect materials used for the presidential election that took place on February 25th, 2023.
Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate had previously sought a court order to prevent INEC from reconfiguring the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
However, the court granted INEC permission to reconfigure the system and also instructed that Obi should be granted access to inspect the materials used for the election.
Days after the court ruling, the LP Presidential Campaign Council (LP-PCC) spokesman Dr Yunusa Tanko accused INEC of disregarding the court order.
“As we speak, INEC has chosen to obey the court order given to it to reconfigure the BVAS machine, which they are doing right now, and ignoring the order granted to us to inspect electoral materials,” he stated in a press release issued on March 10, 2023.
Dr Tanko went on to say, “We, therefore, call on the general public to note the level of lawlessness and brazen disobedience to a lawful order of a court by an important statutory agency such as INEC, which is a well-calculated attempt to undermine and frustrate the presentation of the Petition by the Labour Party and its Presidential candidate before the tribunal in good time.
“We, therefore, want to state that we will not fail to call our supporters to march to INEC offices nationwide in a non-violent protest which is allowed by law. This is to curtail the flagrant disobedience to court orders by INEC.”
