The presidential election petition court has knocked the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, for exhibiting a lack of preparedness in the petition filed against the victory of President Bola Tinubu.
At the resumed court session on Thursday, one of the senior lawyers in the petitioners’ legal team, Emeka Okpoko, sought to tender electoral documents as exhibits before the court.
The documents, however, were said to not have been properly filed and scheduled before the court.
Consequently, the court stepped down the hearing for 10 minutes and asked the legal team to re-file the schedule of documents in line with the provisions of the pre-hearing report.
Even after the court reconvened, the petitioners’ legal team still seemed uncoordinated.
Displeased, Haruna Tsammani, who led a five-member panel of the court, advised the petitioners to seek an adjournment to enable them properly arrange their documents.
“What we have done today is a waste of time. I think you underrated the kind of job you have to do,” one of the justices said.
Responding, Awa Kalu, another senior lawyer in the petitioners’ team, said they won’t be taking the adjournment suggested by the court.
“I took an adjournment yesterday and I would not like to do that today,” Kalu said.
Issues were later resolved and the petitioners tendered electoral documents (form EC8As) from six states.
The states include Rivers (15 LGAs), Benue (23 LGAs), Cross River (18 LGAs), Niger (21 LGAs), Osun (20 LGAs) and Ekiti (16 LGAs).
