PEPC rules Monday on Obis, Atikus request for live streaming, televising of proceedings

INEC, Tinubu, APC ask court to dismiss PDP’s petition

Keyamo knocks Obi kicks over Bilken/Tinubu phone call

The Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) will on Monday delivery rulings on two applications by Peter Obi/the Labour Party (LP) and Atiku Abubakar/the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking live streaming/televising of the proceedings of the court. The court gave indication to this effect on Friday after taking arguments from lawyers to parties in the application by Obi and the LP.

The court had on Thursday, after hearing a similar application by Atiku and the PDP, reserved ruling, which it said will be delivered same day with the one by Obi and his party, in view of the similarity of the reliefs being sought. While moving the application by Obi and his party on Friday, their lawyer, Awa Kalu (SAN) urged the court to grant the application in the interest of the public.

Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) for INEC, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) for Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettma, and Adeniyi Akintola (SAN) for the APC, moved their various counter affidavits and prayed the court to reject the application for being without merit and constituting a distraction to the court. Justice Tsammani then announced that ruling will be delivered on Monday.

He ordered that further pre-hearing session in the petition should continue on Saturday, during which the court announce the schedule of hearing of the main petition. Justice Tsammani said parties will, at Saturday’s hearing, agree on the number of witnesses to be called, time to be allocated for each witness to testify in-chief, and to be cross-examined.

Earlier, the court heard and reserved rulings in applications by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President-elect, Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) seeking the dismissal of the petition by Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

INEC, Tinubu and the APC are praying the court to either dismiss the petition in whole or some of its paragraphs and other accompanying processes filed by the petitioners for offending the provisions of the law.

Lawyers, who moved the applications for INEC, Tinubu and APC – Kemi Pinheiro, Yusuf Ali and Lateef Fagbemi (all Senior Advocates of Nigeria) prayed the court to grant the reliefs in their applications, seven in all. INEC filed two, Tinubu filed three, while APC filed two. Lawyer to the Atiku and the PDP, Chris Uche (SAN), in counter argument, urged the court to dismiss all the applications and proceed to hear his clients’ on the merit.

Uche faulted INEC’s application in which it prayed the court to strike out about 32 paragraphs from the petition by Atiku and the PDP, arguing that some of those paragraphs contained allegations against Tinubu, which the electoral power cannot defend. The petitioners’ lawyer contended that it did not lie with INEC to seek to defend Tinubu against allegations his clients raised in their petition, which include dual citizenship, allegiance to foreign nation and forfeiture of funds in a United States court case.