Tribunal steps down Obi’s petition over poor scheduling of documents

The Presidential Election Petition Court, for the third time this week, has been forced to step down hearing in the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, due to poor scheduling of documents.

Obi and LP are before the tribunal challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima.

The chairman of the court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, at the resumed hearing on Thursday, June 1, stepped down the petition.

This was on account of poor scheduling of documents the petitioners sought to tender to prove their allegation of electoral malpractices during the February 25, 2023, presidential election.

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At Thursday’s proceedings, the court declared that the documents were not properly scheduled as it had ordered counsel to do.

There was some confusion as a lot of discrepancies were noticed as Emeka Okpko, SAN, from the Obi legal team attempted to tender documents from the 23 Local Government Areas of Benue State.

All efforts to reconcile the discrepancies and reschedule the documents were futile forcing the judges to rise for about 15 minutes to allow the petitioners rectify the confusion.

The court asked Okpoko to rather file a different schedule of documents he had prepared which the court said was easier to understand than the earlier filed schedule.

The five Justices then retired to their chambers to await the time the legal team would put its house in order.

The confusion occurred in the presence of Obi, his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, the LP National Chairman, Julius Abure, and other members of the party.

The Star