June 01, (THEWILL) – The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Abuja, has berated the team of lawyers for the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, for exhibiting a lack of preparedness in the petition filed against the victory of President Bola Tinubu.
The development followed the improper filing of electoral documents scheduled for presentation at the resumed hearing of the court on Thursday.
According to THEWILL’s findings, one of the senior lawyers in the petitioners’ legal team, Emeka Okpoko (SAN), sought to tender electoral documents as exhibits before the court.
Okoko, who said he would first tender INEC Forms EC8As for 23 Local Government Areas of Benue State, was interjected by the court and was reminded 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.
While the court stepped down the hearing for 10 minutes and asked the legal team to refile the schedule of documents in line with the provisions of the pre-hearing report, THEWILL learnt that the petitioners’ legal team were still uncoordinated after the court reconvened.
Displeased, the five-man panel of Justices led by Haruna Tsammani, advised the petitioners to seek an adjournment to enable them properly arrange their documents.
“The problem is, your things are not properly organised. 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,” Justice Tsammani said.
“What we have done today is a waste of time. Why not take what we have said seriously? Well, it is your case,” another member of the panel told Okoro.
Responding, Awa Kalu, another senior lawyer in the petitioners’ team, said they won’t be taking the adjournment suggested by the court.
He, therefore, pleaded with the court to accept whatever electoral materials they had to tender.
Okoro then took over and tendered Form EC8As for Osun State (20 LGAs marked as PF1 – PF20) and Ekiti State (16 LGAs marked as PG1 – PG16), INEC Form EC8As (for 16 LGAs) for River State, Benue (23 LGAs), Cross River state (18 LGAs) and Niger State but was objected to by the respondents.
The case has been adjourned to June 2 for continuation of hearing.
