The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has withdrawn a fresh application he filed to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission to allow his agents to participate in the process of sorting out ballot papers used for the February 25 presidential election.
Following this, the three-member panel of justices, led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, struck out the fresh application.
The PDP and Atiku had earlier obtained the order of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Court of Appeal in Abuja to inspect the materials used for the election which produced Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the president-elect.
Counsel to the PDP and Atiku, Joe-Kyari Gadzama (SAN), through a notice of discontinuance, yesterday informed the court that there was no need to maintain the fresh application after the meeting the legal team had with INEC on Tuesday.
“We filed the application owing to challenges and administrative bottlenecks we encountered at the INEC office when we went for access to the election materials as ordered by the court.
“However, before the application dated March 13 could be slated for hearing, INEC, on its own, called our legal team for a meeting,” he said.
