The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Saturday struck out an utility filed by Peter Obi and the Labour celebration which sought to interrogate the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) on its declare that technological glitches prevented the transmission of the 2023 presidential election outcomes.
Obi’s authorized group had filed an utility on Could 22 in search of depart to serve interrogatries containing 12 questions on the primary respondents, INEC. On June 2, the petitioners filed utility praying the courtroom hear the movement exterior the pre- listening to session.
The interrogatory utility desires INEC to reveal who restored the alleged technical glitches, time the technological glitches was fastened and/or repaired, the precise time of the prevalence of the technical glitch which prevented the digital transmission of the outcomes of the Presidential Election, amongst others.
Obi’s lawyer Patrick Ikwueto had urged the courtroom to grant his utility within the curiosity of justice, however all respondents together with INEC, counsels to Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress opposed the movement and urged the courtroom to dismiss it, saying its a water of time.
In a unanimous ruling on the applying the five-man panel of judges led by Justice Haruna Tsammani struck out the movement. Justice Tsammani held that the applying should have been filed inside the timeline stipulated for such utility.
Justice Tsammani mentioned the movement of the petitioners was served after it had concluded it’s pre-hearing session on Could 22.
Tsammani held that for a movement to be heard after its pre-hearing session, the petitioner should place earlier than it the intense circumstances that made him to file the applying, and should fulfill the necessities of the regulation.
“This courtroom is sure by file on proceedings. The regulation is established that it’s the responsibility of a celebration to name the eye of the courtroom over the pendency of an utility.
“Accordingly, this utility fails and is accordingly struck out”, Tsammani held.
