17th May, 2023
By Nimot Sulaimon
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has again deferred the pre-hearing of the petition filed by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, against President-elect Bola Tinubu.
According to Justice Haruna Tsammani of the PEPC Tribunal, it has been postponed until Friday, May 19, 2023.
This comes after both petitioners failed to reach an agreement on papers, among other things.
Mild drama ensued at the hearing on Wednesday due to the presence of both Labour Party National Chairman Julius Abure and its factional chairman, Lamidi Apapa.
When the petition was called, both the acting National Chairman of the Labour Party, Lamidi Apapa, and the National Women’s Leader of the party, Dudu Manugu, attempted to make an appearance for the Labour Party.
Justice Haruna Tsamani stated that if two persons appear for the party, they would not be recorded.
Apapa had attempted to take the Abure’s seat but had been denied.
At the resumption of the hearing, Livy Uzoukwu, counsel for the Labour Party, informed the court that the scheduled meeting to agree on documents to be tendered for hearing had not yielded much results because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had only made available 30% of the documents required from them.
He went on to say that this goes against INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu’s promise to make all required documents available.
He further stated that the party has yet to get documents pertaining to Rivers State, where the Resident Electoral Commissioner stated that there are no forms EC8A ready for distribution but has not to put this in writing despite requests.
Abubakar Mahmoud, counsel for INEC, said he is taken aback by the Labour Party’s complaints, as they did not show up for the meeting as planned and walked out of the rescheduled meeting.
Abubakar stated that the paperwork for Rivers and Sokoto states had been provided, but the Labour Party refused to pay the cost of 1.5 million naira for Sokoto State, and the Form EC8A for Rivers State had not been given to them.
He further stated that while certain documents were supplied to the party, they refused to collect them until they were completed.
He informed the court that they were doing everything necessary to assist the court in a transparent manner.
He emphasised that they are prepared to pay for any document.