BY TAIBAT UMMI YAKUBU

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has challenged a court order seeking to compel it to release documents relating to President Bola Tinubu's 1999 Lagos governorship contest and his victory in the 2023 presidential election, describing the request as irrelevant, speculative and an attempt to embarrass the electoral body.

INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has approached the Federal High Court in Abuja to nullify the subpoena obtained by the defence team of activist and African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, in his ongoing cyberbullying trial.

Through his lawyer, Alex Izinyon, SAN, Amupitan is asking the court to declare the subpoena invalid and unenforceable, arguing that it was improperly issued and seeks records that are either wrongly described or unavailable in the form demanded.

At the centre of the dispute are two sets of documents Sowore wants the electoral commission to produce: Tinubu's INEC Form CF01, including an affidavit concerning lost certificates, from his 1999 Lagos governorship candidacy, and another Form CF01 relating to his participation in the 2023 presidential election.

However, INEC insists that it has no such documents in its custody, arguing that the forms specified in the subpoena are not recognised in the manner described.

“There is no form known as INEC CF01 for the Lagos State Governorship Election 1999 and INEC Form CF01 for the 2023 Presidential Election as such form as described are unknown and are not in the custody of the Applicant,” the application stated.

The commission is also challenging the manner in which the subpoena was served, maintaining that it was not personally delivered to the INEC chairman as required by law.

In its application, the electoral body further questioned the relevance of the requested records to the criminal case against Sowore, arguing that the order was obtained in bad faith and should not be allowed to stand.

One of the grounds presented before the court described the subpoena as “void ab initio, ungrantable, inconsistent and contradictory.”

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INEC's position was reinforced in an affidavit supporting the application, where the commission characterised the demand for the documents as “bad faith, irrelevant, fishy and speculative.”

Its legal team also argued that the electoral body was being dragged into a criminal proceeding in which it was neither the complainant nor the defendant, insisting that the requested records had no direct connection with the allegations against the activist.

The affidavit noted that the prosecution was instituted by the Federal Republic of Nigeria against Sowore, stressing that the INEC chairman was not a party to the case.

Meanwhile, the legal battle over the electoral documents comes as Sowore's cyberbullying trial faces another adjournment, with Justice Mohammed Umar fixing November 17 for the continuation of proceedings.

The latest sitting was stalled on Wednesday after the judge reportedly stayed away from court due to a cold.

In a related development, the court had earlier approved another request by Sowore's defence team to subpoena Joe Igbokwe, a prominent All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, to appear as a defence witness.

The defence intends to question Igbokwe over his public comments and reactions to Sowore's social media posts in which he described President Tinubu as a criminal.

The INEC chairman's application now places the disputed electoral records before the court as another issue in the high-profile proceedings involving Sowore.