INEC flouts court oder, denies PDP legal team access to inspect documents

From Daniel Abel, Lafia

The Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Nasarawa chapter has indicated that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nasarawa State Office has flouted Court order directing it to allow the legal team of the Party to inspect the documents/reports of the March 18th Governorship election in the state.

The opposition PDP gave the indication in a statement that was signed by the Party’s Secretary, Adamu Bako-Ninga, and issued to journalists in Lafia

The statement noted that the party is more worried over an alleged threat by the INEC’s Administrative Secretary in the state, Alhaji Musa Wase who threatened to destroy the documents to frustrate any hope of the PDP at the tribunal.

The statement reads; “The threat by the Administrative Secretary of INEC in the state, Alh. Musa Usman Wase to destroy the documents/reports to cover the evidence of the rigging that took place at Gayam and Chiroma wards in Lafia and in Tunga in Awe LGAs is disturbing.

“Wase reportedly directed that no document on the election should be released to our lawyers despite the court order and our official request for the documents.

“Besides, there are strong rumours of threat by the Admin Secretary to tamper with the documents because of the obvious discrepancies between the iRev results and the figures announced by the INEC returning officer declaring Abdullahi Sule as the winner of the election.”

“The PDP wishes to alert the public that Usman Wase is working to frustrate the party’s legal team and to tamper with election documents.

“We call on the INEC National Chairman to direct the Lafia office to respect the Order of the courts and to immediately release the certified true copies and allow our legal team to inspect the election materials.

“We condemn the blatant partisanship of Musa Wase and the alleged threat to tamper with records of the Governorship election in Nasarawa State,” the statement reads.

In a swift reaction, the Administrative Secretary of INEC in the state, Alhaji Wase, denied the allegation by the PDP.

Wase explained that the law stipulated that “Once you apply for a document, it takes up to one week before you can have access to it, and the PDP just applied for the document last week Thursday, the 16th, we are processing their application to meet up with the seven days.”

“It is the right of every political party to apply to INEC for Certified true copies of documents used for elections and such materials should be provided within the specified period,” Wase added.