A minor incident occurred during the resumed hearing of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Wednesday, just as the doors to the courtroom were opened for lawyers and others to enter.
The drama occurred between the two Labour Party (LP) camps about which group should appear in court.
The justices arrived to begin the day’s proceedings and similarly refused to accept the party’s representation, with the exception of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, who is present in court.
When the petition was called, both the acting National Chairman of the party, Lamidi Apapa, and the National Women’s Leader of the party, Dudu Manugu, attempted to make an appearance for the Labour Party.
Justice Haruna Tsamani stated that if two people appear for the party, their appearance would not be recorded.
Apapa had attempted to take the Abure’s seat but had been denied.
At the resumption of the hearing, Livy Uzoukwu, counsel for the Labour Party, informed the court that the scheduled meeting to agree on documents to be tendered for hearing had not yielded much results because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had only made available 30% of the documents required from them.
He went on to say that this runs counter to INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu‘s promise that all required documents would be made available.
He further stated that the party has yet to receive paperwork pertaining to Rivers State, where the Resident Electoral Commissioner stated that there are no forms EC8A available to be issued but has failed to put it in writing despite requests to do so.
However, counsel for INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, stated that he is surprised by the charges of the Labour Party’s lawyer because they did not show up for the meeting as promised and walked out of the rescheduled meeting.
The documentation for Rivers and Sokoto states were provided, according to Abubakar, but the Labour Party refused to pay the cost of 1.5 million naira for Sokoto State, and the Form EC8A for Rivers State was not given to them.
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He further stated that while certain documents were supplied to the party, he refused to collect them until they were complete.
He informed the court that they were doing everything they could to assist the court openly.
He went on to say that they are willing to pay any amount of money for a document.
