Supreme Court Dismisses Atiku, PDP’s Appeal To Inspect INEC Server

The Supreme Court sitting in Abuja on Tuesday dismissed an appeal filed by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the February 23 general election.

The party had challenged the decision of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that prevented Atiku and his party from accessing and inspecting the central server of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The petitioner headed to the Appeal Court to seek redress on the ruling of the tribunal.

In a ruling on Tuesday, a five-man panel led by Justice Datijo Mohammed struck out the appeal for having become statute-barred.

The apex court noted that the lower court was right to have restrained itself from the application of the petitioners since parties had joined issues on the existence or non-existence of INEC central server.

Recall that on June 24, the lower court dismissed the appeal based on the ground that granting the request of Atiku and PDP would amount to delving into an application, which is the subject matter of the substantive petition.