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…..tenders election results, other documents in Rivers, Benue, 4 other states
The Labour Party (LP) and presidential candidate, Mr.Peter Obi said they are challenging the victtory of President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the February 25 election in 18 states of the Federation.
This was disclosed at Thursday hearing of their petition where the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) accused the legal team of “wasting the time of the tribunal” with their shoddy documentation of exhibits intended to be tendered in evidence.
Specifically, Justice Haruna Tsammani leading four others justices on the panel, described the conduct of counsel to the petitioner’s as “not being organised”.
The petitioners had on Wednesday sought an adjournment in their petition on the grounds that two members of their secretariat staff were ill.
Obi who opened its case on Monday, called one witness who tendered five documents in evidence, including a United States District Court judgement on Tinubu’s forfeiture of 460,000 US dollars allegedly linked to drug trafficking.
However, proceedings in the petition resumed on Thursday on a dramatic note when a senior counsel in the legal team, Chief Emeka Okoko, SAN said he would first tender INEC Forms EC8As for 23 Local Government Areas of Benue State.
But the court drew his attention to the fact that his schedule of documents showed Forms EC8As for Benue State LGAs but was not itemized according to polling units in line with rules of court.
In response, Okoro started reading out the documents for the LGAs in Benue State, when he was quickly advised that he should continue to tender documents LGA by LGA.
In addition, the panel recommended that the petitioners should put polling units results for the states serially according to the Local Government by local government as they have three weeks timeline would elapse before before they are done.
It recommended that the petitioners should put polling unit results for the states serially according to the LGAs.
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Okoro then admitted that he had another informal schedule of documents that itemized the electoral documents for states and LGAs properly.
Subsequently, the court stood down proceedings for ten minutes, directing Obi’s legal team to reproduce another formal schedule of documents and ensure they do not “waste time unnecessarily.”
Okoro looked back to a junior lawyer and repositioned again to tell the judges that for Rivers state, they only have 16 LGAs to tender for now.
His response did not go down well with the judges.
“The problem is, your things are not properly organized,” Justice Haruna Tsammani said.
The judge then advised the petitioners to seek adjournment to organise themselves.
“Learned silk, we are not trying to teach you your job. Why not take an adjournment, go back to your chambers and organise things. These your documents are not well prepared. This proceeding is not being properly conducted,” the judge said.
“What we have done today is a waste of time,” another member of the panel told Okoro.
“Why not take what we have said seriously. Well, it is your case,” another judge advised.
But Justice Stephen Adah asked Obi’s lawyer to “move on if you want to.”
Lead counsel to the petitioners, Awa Kalu SAN, thereafter informed the court that he intends to tender INEC Form EC8As from 15 Local Government Areas of Rivers State.
Okoro then took over proceedings and tendered Form EC8As for Osun State (20 LGAs marked as PF1- PF20) and Ekiti State (16 LGAs marked as PG1- to PG16), INEC Form EC8As (for 16 LGAs) for River State, Benue(23 LGAs), Cross River state( 18 LGAs) and for Niger state but it was objected to by the respondents.
