March 15, (THEWILL) – The Presidential Election Petition court (PEPC), sitting in Abuja, has struck out two motions filed by the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The first motion (on notice) marked CA/PEC/13m/2023, sought the leave of court to observe the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines being carried out by INEC officials.
The second motion (exparte) was filed on March 14 and sought for an order from the court to serve court documents on Tinubu and APC by substituted means, that is, to serve their papers on their staff or paste it on their premises.
But in a proceeding on Wednesday, PDP’s counsel, Chief Ifeanyi Iboko, said he filed a notice of discontinuance, thereby withdrawing those motions on the grounds that they had been overtaken by events.
Idoko said the intent of the motion was aimed at observing the reconfiguration of BVAS by INEC, but that since the court had already granted the electoral umpire permission to go ahead with reconfiguration, “we felt there was no need to continue the motions.”
“Motion exparte having been withdrawn is hereby struck out”, the Court ruled.
Atiku and the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, are challenging the 2023 presidential election.
INEC had declared Tinubu of the APC, the winner of the February 25th Presidential Election.
However, the two opposition parties had accused the Electoral Commission of breaching the electoral Act 2022 in the conduct of the poll.
They had cited the failure of the INEC to transmit results of the poll directly from the polling units through its IReV.
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