The pre-hearing of the appeal filed by Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi against President-elect Bola Tinubu was postponed by the Presidential Election appeal Tribunal, which was in Abuja on Wednesday, till Friday, May 19.
On the petitioners’ request, the Tribunal had last week postponed the pre-hearing hearing for Obi and the LP’s petition until Wednesday, May 17.
A minor drama was slated between the two Labour Party camps on Wednesday as the justices arrived to start the day’s proceedings and also declined to accept the party’s presence outside of Obi.
When the petition was summoned, the acting national chairman of the party, Lamidi Apapa, and the national women’s leader of the party, Dudu Manugu, attempted to appear on behalf of the Labour Party. However, the Tribunal rejected their requests.
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According to Justice Haruna Tsamani, if a party is represented by two people, their appearance will not be noted.
Livy Uzoukwu, counsel for the Labour Party, told the court during the resumed hearing that the meeting that was scheduled to decide on the documents to be offered for hearing had not produced many results because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had only provided 30% of the documents that were required from them.
He continued by saying that this goes against the INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu’s pledge that all necessary documents will be made available.
He continues by saying that the party has yet to get documents pertaining to Rivers State, where the resident electoral commissioner allegedly stated that no forms EC8A were available for distribution but has failed to do so in writing despite requests.
However, Abubakar Mahmoud, counsel for INEC, said he was surprised by the Labour party’s counsel’s accusations because they skipped the arranged meeting and did not show up as scheduled.
According to Abubakar, the documents for the states of Rivers and Sokoto were really provided, but the Labour Party declined to pay the fee of 1.5 million naira for Sokoto State and was not handed the Form EC8A for the state of Rivers.
According to him, the party received certain documents, but he insisted on waiting to collect it until it was finished. He gave the court his assurance that they were doing everything in their power to support it in an open manner.
