Labour Party has threatened that it will call on its members to hold down offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission throughout the Nation for allegedly frustrating its petition against the outcome of the 2023 Presidential Election.
Reports has it that Dr. Yunusa Tanko, the spokesman for the Presidential Campaign Council of Labour party, revealed this in a statement obtained on Saturday.
Tanko accused INEC of disobeying the order of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which directed the electoral umpire to grant the party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, access to the certified true copies of materials used in the conduct of the poll.
“It will be recalled that the aforesaid order of the presidential election petition tribunal was duly served on INEC on March 3, 2023, despite the fact that they were present and represented at the tribunal when the Order was made.
“Not minding the service of the said order on INEC, and a reminder letter dated March 6, 2023, and delivered same date at the INEC Headquarters Abuja, the electoral umpire has continued to ignore and or disobey the valid Order of such magnitude till now,” Tanko said.
The presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi respectively rejected the outcome of the Presidential election over alleged rigging and voter intimidation among other reasons and had approached the Presidential Election Court to seek permission for the inspection of election materials used during the poll.
On March 3, the Court of Appeal in Abuja granted their request to inspect the election materials used during February 25 presidential poll.
Both candidates refused to concede defeat and refused the gesture of conciliation made by the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress political party.
Reacting further, Tanko said, “The action of INEC under reference also constitutes for all intent and purposes, an act of judicial insubordination and willful refusal to comply with the order of court.
“As we speak INEC has chosen to obey the court order given to it to reconfigure the BIVAS machine, which they doing right now and ignoring the order granted to us to inspect electoral materials.
“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, and 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.”
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