The Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), and its Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has withdrawn the fresh application they filed to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) to allow their agents to participate in the process of sorting out ballot papers that were used for the presidential election held on the 25th February, 2023.
Both the PDP and Atiku, who are separately challenging the outcome of the election that was declared in favour of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) Bola Tinubu.
PDP told the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, that they were no longer interested in the application.
When the motion ex-parte was called up for hearing, Atiku, through his team of lawyers led by Chief Joe Gadzama, told the court that he filed a notice of discontinuance.
The decision of Applicants to withdraw the application, was a fallout of a meeting his legal team had with the leadership of the electoral body yesterday, owing to challenges and administrative bottlenecks they encountered at the INEC office when they went for access to the election materials as ordered by the court.
The tribunal had in the order, directed INEC to allow the Applicants to inspect, scan, and carry out forensic examination and analysis of the ballot papers, data form, BVAS, including photocopying of the ballot papers and information stored in the computer server/IREV.
Atiku argued that allowing the agents of his party to be on ground while the materials were sorted out, would ensure transparency in the process and guarantee that the ballot papers would not be tampered with.
Reporting by Ifeoma Nwovu; Editing by Chinasa Ossai & Adeniyi Bakare