The Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja has further adjourned the pre-hearing session in the case filed by Peter Obi and the Labour Party against the Independent National Electoral Commission, President-elect Bola Tinubu, Vice President-elect Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress.
Due to their inability to streamline their application as earlier ordered by court, they agreed for further adjournment.
THE WHISTLER reported that the court had on May 8 directed counsels to parties to meet and harmonize their briefs before the next adjourned date for pre-hearing today.
The court had said that the conclusion of the pre-hearing session will pave way for the main hearing where the panel would have drawn up the key issues for determination.
Obi’s legal team led Dr Livy Uzoukwu SAN, had filed his pre-hearing session forms seeking “Applications for subpoena, objections, enforcement of order of court not obeyed by INEC and other applications arising in the course of the hearing.”
Before the court resumed, THE WHISTLER observed counsels to all the parties having a discussion.
When the court resumed sitting, Uzoukwu, the petitioners’ lead counsel, told the court to further adjourn the case to Wednesday, saying lawyers in the case have agreed for an adjournment so as to give them more time to file their applications and replies.
“We also agree that before then, we will meet and agree on documents that are not in contention, those that are controversial; documents to be tendered without being objected to and those that are controversial,” Uzoukwu said.
Wole Olanipekun, SAN, counsel for Bola Tinubu and his Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima, confirmed that such agreement was reached by lawyers to the parties including himself.
“We also agree that by Monday and Tuesday, all processes and replies would have been filed so that Wednesday will be for adoption,” he said.
Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who represented the APC, confirmed that all of them reached the agreement, adding “we believe that it will hasten the proceedings, so we give our hands of fellowship.”
The lawyer for the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmoud A.B SAN, equally confirmed the agreement with other lawyers wherein they agreed to exchange all their processes before the next adjourned date.
Subsequently, the five-man panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, held that the learned senior counsels having agreed “that the pre-hearing session be further adjourned” to file and respond to respective applications, such requests was granted.
The court while commending the lawyers for seeking to hasten the process, also recommended that they streamline and file the issues for determination before the next adjourned date, May 17.
Recall that Obi, in his petition, had maintained that Tinubu should be disqualified for not meeting the constitutional requirements of having the highest votes cast in 2/3 of states in the country and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.