All is not financially well at the moment with the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi as he confessed to being broke to the extent of not being able to pay for court documents certification.
Obi made the confession at the ongoing Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Court of Appeal.
At the proceedings of 17th May 2023, the leading counsel to Obi, Mr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN complained of their inability to obtain some electoral documents from INEC in respect of Rivers and Sokoto States.
However, lead counsel to INEC, Mr. Mahmud, SAN, drew the court’s attention to Mr. Uzoukwu’s letter, where Mr. Peter Obi and the Labour Party expressed their inability to make the requisite statutory payments to INEC, for the issuance of the certified true copies of the said documents.
Mr. Mahmud also drew the court’s attention to the fact that counsel to Labour Party and Peter Obi also walked out of the meeting scheduled for the identification of relevant documents, thereby, stalling the progress of the proceedings.
In his address to the court, counsel for the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Wole Olanipeukn, SAN, drew the court’s attention to section 104(1) of the Evidence Act, which mandates the payment of statutory fees as a condition precedent for the issuance of certified true copies of documents by any public officer.
