Again, the Presidential Election Petition Court PEPC had to step down hearing the petition filed by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi against the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declaration of President Bola Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 polls.For what will be the third time, 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 2023 presidential election.
At yesterday’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 the 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 has experienced turbulence three times following 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 skeletal 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 the time the legal team will put its house in order.
Specifically, Justice Misitura Bolaji-Yusuf said that the whole exercise of the petitioners was a waste of the court’s time.
“What we have done today is a waste of time. The poor way you have arranged the documents will cause confusion for both of you and the court.
“At this stage, it is better for you to go back and rearrange those documents in a sequence so as to help yourselves and the court.”
