Again, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) was forced to step down hearing in the petition filed by Mr Peter Gregory Obi and the Labour Party (LP) against the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
At Thursday’s proceedings, the Court discovered that the documents were not properly scheduled as ordered by the Court.
Blueprint reports that it would be the third term the court was stepping down such application.
The petition was stepped down by the Court following poor schedule of documents being sought to be tendered to establish the allegations of malpractices during the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
In the drama that ensued at the point of tendering the documents from the 23 local government areas of Benue, a lot of discrepancies were uncovered.
All efforts to reconcile the anormaly and reschedule the documents were unsuccessful as the errors were beyond immediate solution.
At that point, counsel to Obi and the Labour Party, Chief Emeka Okpoko SAN, sought to use documents not filed to conduct the proceedings but the move was rejected on the ground 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 promoting the shift in the hearing of the petition.
At the time of filing this report, Peter Obi and the Vice Presidential candidate, Datti Baba Ahmed, were in the court as their lawyers went 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 the time the legal team will put its house in order.
Moment after, the legal team did the needful and the court has since resumed sitting.
