Rivers APC May Approach Court To Compel INEC To Produce CTC Documents Used In Guber Election

The All Progressives Congress in Rivers State said it is considering approaching a court of competent jurisdiction to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission to produce Certified True Copies of documents used in the last governorship election at the tribunal.

This is as the party disclosed that seven of its house of assembly candidates have successfully filed their applications at the state election petition tribunal.

The APC Publicity Secretary, Darlington Nwauju, disclosed this to Punch during a telephone interview on Sunday evening.

Nwauju however said he could not lay his hand on the specific constituencies of the assembly candidates. The INEC had declared the PDP winners of the 32 state assembly seats as well as the three senatorial seats.

Recalled that the party’s governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, had met a brick wall in trying to secure CTC documents from the INEC headquarters in Port Harcourt.

Cole’s last move to secure the same almost got him mobbed by alleged supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party, a situation that culminated in a series of protests by members and supporters of the supporters of the PDP.

Nwauju stated, “Seven or eight assembly candidates have filed their petitions.” For the APC’s governorship candidate, he said the party had yet to file, but that it was considering other options.

At the last count, one of its lawyers, Dr Godswill Dike, who was allegedly kidnapped said after he was released that he handed over the CTC he collected from INEC to a member of the party.

But spokesman of the APC 2023 governorship Campaign Council, Sogbeye Eli, told newsmen that the CTC was hijacked from Dike by suspected PDP chieftains.

Reacting to a question, Nwauju said, “We have not filed. Are we not going to use the CTC to file?

“But when we get to the court, we can explain your difficulties to the court and you can move a motion for the court to compel INEC to produce it in court.

“During the last election petition tribunal we witnessed, that was what happened. So it is a means of also getting the same documents.”

Speaking, Dr Dike who regained his freedom last week corroborated Nwauju’s views, adding that the said documents can be obtained online.

He stated, “Those documents are also online. The party could still explore the option of getting online soft copies of the documents.

“They are public documents; we can as well reapply and pay for the CTCs and authorities will issue us the true certified copies of the election materials.

“We can still file without those documents and at the end of the day, we can subpoena, that is a witness summon, calling the person to come to court and tender documents or testify.”

Continuing, he said, “So, by this, we can call on INEC to come to court and tender the documents. The petitions we filed were gotten online.

“So, when we are dealing with admissibility, we can bring in INEC to tender the ones the law will accept.”