by James Sambo

On Monday, March 2, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja rejected an application for an order to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission from making use of the electronic card readers in the forthcoming general elections.

The ex parte application, was filed in behalf of four political parties – the United Democratic Party, Action Alliance, Allied Congress Party of Nigeria and Alliance for Democracy.

The parties’ argument was that the use of card reader Machine for the forthcoming election was contrary to the amended Electoral Act 2010 and that their members across the country who had been enlightened on the accreditation procedure as contained in the Electoral Act 2010 would be disenfranchised as they were not educated on the use of card reader.

In his ruling on the application filed on behalf of the political parties by four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, held that INEC deserved to be given a chance to state its defence before making a final pronouncement on their request.

Ademola stated that the political parties had duly proved that they had legal rights to institute the action and that the case was one that could be litigated on, but however, insisted that he could not grant the interim orders sought by the applicants without first hearing from INEC.

In futherance to the ruling, the court ordered INEC to file its defence within four days of receiving the court papers.

The hearing of the substantive suit has been fixed for March 10.

Kolapo Olapoju