The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPC) sitting in Abuja has adjourned the pre-hearing of the petition filed by the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, against President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Obi is challenging the declaration of Tinubu candidate of the All Progressive Party (APC) as the winner of the 2023 presidential election
The tribunal, headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned the date to Friday, May 19, due to the failure of parties to agree on documents, among other reasons.
During the day’s proceedings on Wednesday, the Labour Party’s factional leaders clashed over seats at the presidential election petition court. The altercation occurred when the party’s acting national chairman, Lamidi Apapa, confronted Akin Osuntokun, director-general of Peter Obi’s presidential campaign council, upon the former’s arrival in the courtroom.
Apapa claimed that, as the rightful head of the Labour Party, he belonged in the plaintiffs’ gallery.
The Tribunal refused to take an appearance for Apapa, and the National Women’s Leader of the party, Dudu Manugu, tried to make an appearance for the Labour Party when the petition was called.
Justice Haruna Tsamani stated that if two people appear for the party, their appearance will not be recorded.
At the resumption of the hearing, Labour Party counsel Livy Uzoukwu 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.
Uzoukwu added that this is contrary to the commitment by the INEC Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu, that all documents required shall be made available.
He stated that the party is yet to get documents with respect to Rivers State, where he said the Resident Electoral Commissioner said there are no forms EC8A available to be given but is yet to put that in writing despite requests to do so.
However, counsel for INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, stated that he is surprised by the allegations of the Labour Party’s counsel because they did not show up for the meeting as agreed and walked out of the rescheduled meeting.
Mahmoud added that the documents for Rivers and Sokoto states were indeed provided, but the Labour Party refused to pay the sum of ₦1.5 million for Sokoto State, and Form EC8A for Rivers State has not been given to them.
He also noted that some documents were given to the party, but they refused to collect them until they were complete, and he assured the court that they were doing everything possible to assist the court in an open manner.
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