The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Wednesday granted the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar permission to inspect and obtain Certified True Copies (CTC) of election materials used in the conduct of the February 23 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The tribunal also ordered INEC to make available all documents and electoral materials used for the election for the purpose of the inspection.

However, a request by Atiku and his party to be allowed to carry out forensic audit on materials and polling documents was declined by the tribunal. The court also refused to direct INEC to make available, all polling documents for forensic analysis as requested by the applicants

The court further refused to order the electoral umpire to grant the applicants’ forensic experts access to examine form EC48 and other relevant forms used during the presidential election.

Delivering a unanimous ruling on the ex parte motion filed by Atiku and the PDP, Justice Abdul Aboki held that the applicants’ prayers for scanning and forensic analysis of the election materials were against the provision of Section 151 of the Electoral Act.

While noting that the applicants’ lawyer had rightly based his argument on a previous decision of an Election Petition Tribunal, the court observed that the decision which permits applicants to inspect, to scan for forensic analysis had been overruled by the court because it confers undue advantage on the applicant.