INEC to appeal court order on temporary voter cards

The Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday night said it would appeal the court order which stated that voters should be allowed to make use of the temporary voter cards during the March 18, 2023 governorship and state assembly elections.

The spokesperson for the chairman to the commission, Rotimi Oyekanmi, made this known to our correspondent.

He said, “INEC has been served a copy of the judgement delivered Thursday by the Federal High Court, Abuja Division which ordered it to allow two plantiffs to vote with their TVC.

“The Commission is taking immediate steps to appeal against the judgement of the trial court”.

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The PUNCH reports that the Federal High Court in Abuja, on Thursday, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to allow the use of temporary voter cards in the forthcoming governorship and state houses of assembly elections which has been slated for March 18.

Two aggrieved Nigerians had filed a suit seeking the use of the Temporary Voter Card in the general election in the absence of the Permanent Voter Cards.

The plaintiffs, Kofoworola Olusegun and Wilson Allwell, in the suit filed on February 8 and marked FHC/ABJ/CS/180/2023, challenged the position of INEC and asked the court to determine “whether a person whose name appears in the electronic format in INEC’s central database and manual, printed paper based record or hard copy format of the register of voters and has been assigned a Voter’s Identification Number can be said to be entitled to be accredited to vote with his/her TVC in the general election to be conducted by the defendant.”

Consequently, they prayed for the following reliefs should the questions be answered in their favour.

They asked for “a declaration that the plaintiff, having fulfilled all necessary legal requirements to register and having consequently been captured in its central database and manual, printed paper-based record or hard copy format of INEC’s maintained register of voters, the plaintiffs are entitled to vote using their TVC in the 2023 general election.”

Ruling, the court held that there was no portion of the law, both the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act that stated that it was only the PVCs that could be used, but that the law under Section 47 provided for a voter card.