Borno LG polls: Court Grants PDP chairmanship candidate permission to inspect election materials
The Local Government Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Maiduguri has granted Leave to the Chairmanship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC), Ibrahim Bukar Goni Kolo to inspect election materials.
Bukar and PDP as first and second applicants respectively had petitioned the tribunal with Borno State Independent Electoral Commission (BOSIEC) as first respondent, challenging the declaration of All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the election, Tijjani Umar Ali as winner of the January 20 Local Government election.
In a Motion Exparte issued by the Chairman of the three-member tribunal, Worship Ali Kolomi, ordered BOSIEC to allow Kolo to have access to inspect, photocopy and conduct forensic analysis of all materials/documents used for conducting the chairmanship election in MMC.
The tribunal among others also ordered BOSIEC to provide Kolo the certified true copies of all result sheets for all the polling units in MMC, and all the signed ballot papers used for the voting as well as list of accredited voters.
Counsel to Kolo, Barrister M.S Abubakar, said the order had been served BOSIEC but it has refused to comply and allow for the inspection of the materials.
Abubakar said that time was running out and that BOSIEC was deliberately refusing to comply with the order in an attempt to ensure that the tribunal did not entertain any petition regarding the election it conducted where APC won all the 27 chairmanship and 312 councillor positions.
