Ogona Anita
The Presidential Elections Tribunal has Adjourned to Friday 2nd June, 2023. to continue Hearing on the INEC, APC, Tinubu vs Peter Obi proceedings.
Counsel to Peter Obi has submitted electoral documents from River , Ekiti, Niger, Cross River and Osun states and the Tribunal has accepted it as a working documents although APC and INEC defendants opposed submission of those documents. The tribunal is expected to look at it properly and give judgement . Labour party lawyers are at their best today.
However earlier on for the third time, the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, was forced to step 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 petition was stepped down by the court 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.
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. at the resumed hearing the
Form EC8As from 18 Cross River State LGAs have been admitted and marked Exh PD1-PD18.
Form EC8As for 23 Benue State LGAs have been admitted and marked Exh PC1-PC23.
Form EC8As for 15 Rivers State LGAs have been admitted and marked EXhDB 1-15.
INEC: We object to the tendering of these documents for reasons we shall set out in our written address.
2nd & 3rd: We also oppose to the tendering and shall advance the reasons in our final written address4th: We vehemently oppose to the admissibility of the documents and we will advance our reasons in our final written address.
NB: 1st- INEC 2nd & 3rd – Tinubu & Shettima respectively 4th – APC
Court: They Are Hereby ADMITTED
LP: It’s 1pm and time allotted for today is finished. May we pray to continue our presentation tomorrow?
Court: Can you finish with the EC8As today?
Lp: We have exhausted all the documents we brought in today. We measured with the time to be used.
Court: Any opposition to adjournment?
All parties: No.
Court: Court is hereby adjourned till tomorrow. 2nd June, 2023 by 9am for continuation of hearing.
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