News

Tribunal steps down Peter Obi’s petition over poor schedule of documents

Published

2 years ago

June 1, 2023

The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC has stepped down hearing in the petition filed by Mr Peter Gregory Obi and the Labour Party, LP, against the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The tribunal took the decision following a poor schedule of documents being sought to be tendered to establish the allegations of malpractices during the February 25 presidential election.

At Thursday’s proceedings, the court discovered that the documents were not properly scheduled as ordered by the Court.

In the drama that ensued at the point of rendering the documents from the 23 local government areas of Benue, a lot of discrepancies were uncovered.

All efforts to reconcile the anomaly and reschedule the documents were unsuccessful as the errors were beyond immediate solution.

To save the situation, counsel to Obi and the Labour Party, Chief Emeka Okpoko SAN, sought to use documents not filed to conduct the proceedings, but the move was rejected on the ground of illegality.

In the end, the court stepped down hearing of the petition and ordered the legal team to go and re-file the schedule of documents in line with the provisions of the pre-hearing report.

The hearing of Obi’s petition had run into stormy waters three times, prompting the shift in the hearing of the petition.

At the time of this report, Peter Obi and the Vice Presidential candidate, Datti Baba Ahmed, were in the court as their lawyers were running helter and skelter to the Registry of the Court to file a new schedule of documents.

Meanwhile, the five Justices led by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani hearing the petition have retired to their chambers to await when the legal team will put its house in order.