The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT), sitting in Abuja, has warned that it would not entertain any sort of delay in the cases brought by Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), challenging the victory of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Tinubu, who was declared the winner of the February 25 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on March 1, would be sworn in, on May 29 to replace Muhammadu Buhari, the incumbent, who would be handing over after eight years in power.
Justice Haruna Tsammani, leading four others – Stephen Adah Misitura O. Bolaji Yusuf, Boloukuoromo Ugoh. And Abba Mohammed, all of the Court of Appeal, which is serving as the PEPT, had promised that all cases would be heard on their merits, Arise Television reports.
A senior lawyer in Tinubu’s camp, who asked not to be named, told one of our correspondents on Sunday that, “The only thing they will do is to schedule the hearing, the number of witnesses, how many minutes the witness will use, and how to admit the documents; that’s what they call pre-trial.
“They are going to prepare a timetable for the hearing of the cases, the number of days to be spent by the petitioners, the number of days to be spent by the respondents, how do we take in the documents, certified true copy of the documents, are they going to be admitted like that or if there is an objection, how do we raise an objection to document?
“Will the court write a ruling on objection immediately or will the court write it in the cause of the main judgment? Those are the things that will happen tomorrow (Monday).”
