Atiku Abubakar and INEC boss Prof. Mahmood Yakubu
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, have withdrawn an application they filed to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow their agents to participate in the sorting of ballot papers used in the February 25 presidential election. Both the PDP and Atiku, who are separately challenging the election outcome declared in favour of Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Court of Appeal in Abuja that they deemed it appropriate to discontinue the application.
When the ex‑parte motion (CA/PEC/10M/2023) was called up for hearing on Wednesday, Atiku’s legal team, led by Joe Kyari Gadzama, informed the court that a notice of discontinuance had been filed. Justice Joseph Ikyegh’s three‑member panel then struck out the application.
A member of Atiku’s legal team, who wished to remain anonymous, explained that the decision to withdraw resulted from a meeting with INEC leadership on Tuesday. The original application, dated March 13, was filed because the team encountered challenges and administrative bottlenecks at the INEC office when seeking access to election materials as granted by the court. However, before the hearing, INEC independently called the legal team for a meeting. During that meeting, the outstanding issues were resolved, with INEC pledging to allow the PDP’s agents to observe the sorting of the requested electoral materials, especially the ballot papers. Since this was the primary relief sought in the fresh application, the team decided it was unnecessary to proceed with the hearing and filed a notice of discontinuance to save judicial time, which the court subsequently granted.
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