The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, was forced to postpone hearings in the petition filed by Mr Peter Gregory Obi and the Labour Party, LP, against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s election for the third time.
The court dismissed the petition due to a poor schedule of documents sought to be tendered in order to establish the allegations of malpractice during the February 25 presidential election.
The court discovered during Thursday’s proceedings that the documents had not been properly scheduled as ordered by the Court.
Many discrepancies were discovered during the drama that ensued at the point of rendering the documents from Benue’s 23 local government areas.
All attempts to reconcile the anomaly and reschedule the documents were futile because the errors were beyond immediate repair.
Chief Emeka Okpoko SAN, counsel to Obi and the Labour Party, attempted to save the situation by using unfiled documents to conduct the proceedings, but the move was rejected on the grounds of illegality.
In the end, the court stepped down 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 had run into stormy waters three times, prompting 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 skelter 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 when the legal team will put its house in order.