Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate in the February 25 election, says he withdrew a motion before an appellate court over a request to inspect electoral materials because events had overtaken the issue.

In a statement, Mr Abubakar said INEC had already granted him access to inspect the material hence his withdrawal of the motion.

He said the clarification was important following insinuations and mischievous reporting of the withdrawal of the application for INEC to grant access to his legal team and the PDP on the inspection of the documents related to the presidential poll.

The appellate court had granted the request of PDP and Abubakar to be granted unfettered access to the INEC documents used for the presidential election.

“On March 10, 2023, we filed a motion (number 12M) ex parte and affidavit of urgency to ensure the implementation of the court order. The court, however, asked that we put the president-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the INEC on notice,” stated Mr Abubakar.

He added, “Consequently, we filed a motion on notice (number 13M) and motion ex parte (number 13MA) for substituted service on Tinubu.”

On Tuesday, at a conference meeting between lawyers of the PDP, Labour Party, APC, and INEC, access was eventually granted to the legal team of PDP by INEC.

Mr Abubakar said the legal team withdrew the two motions when the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, pointing out that the motions were withdrawn because INEC already granted access to Mr Abubakar and PDP.

(NAN)