The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja adjourned the pre-hearing of the petition by Peter Obi, a Labour Party presidential candidate, against the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday.
The 5-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani fixed the date after the parties in the petition failed to agree on documents, among other reasons.
Earlier, before the court session, the party faction’s leadership clashed over whose faction was recognized legally.
Also, the presidential tribunal court on Wednesday refused to record the names of any petitioner representing the Labour Party when they tried to make an appearance in the court.
The controversy erupted as the National Chairman of the Labour Party introduced himself, and Peter Obi and the National Women Leader of the Party introduced themselves as the petitioners.
Justice Tsamani said that if different people are making an appearance for LP, they will not be put on record.
In his presentation, the Labour Party’s lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu, told the court that the scheduled meeting to agree on documents to be tendered for hearing had not yielded any results because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had only made available 30% of the documents required from them.
Uzoukwu added that this is contrary to the commitment by the INEC Chairman, Mahmoud Yakubu, that all documents required shall be made available.
Reacting to this, counsel to INEC, Mahmuod Abubakar, claimed the necessary documents were provided, but LP has refused to pay a sum of 1.5 million naira for Sokoto State, and form EC8A for Rivers State has not been given to them.
