May 17, (THEWILL) – The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, has further adjourned to Friday, May 19, for the continuation of pre-hearing in the petition filed by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, against the President-Elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
A 5-member panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, had on Wednesday, May 10, adjourned to May 17, pre-hearing on the suit at the instance of the petitioners
At the resumed hearing on Wednesday, counsel for the LP, Livy Uzoukwu, informed the court that the scheduled meeting to agree on documents to be tendered for hearing has not yielded much results as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has only made available 30% of the documents required from them.
Uzoukwu said the party is yet to get documents with respect to Rivers State.
Counsel for INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, however, said he is taken aback by the allegations of the counsel for the Labour Party as 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 naira for Sokoto State, and Form EC8A for Rivers State have not been given to them.
He added that some documents were given to the Party but refused to collect them until it was complete.
Mahmoud assured the court that they were doing everything possible to assist the court in an open manner.
Justice Tsammani, however, adjourned until Friday, May 19, for the continuation of pre-hearing on Obi’s petition.
