The petitions by Mr. Peter Obi and his party, the Labour Party (LP) challenging the outcome of the February 25th presidential elections, on Saturday, suffered a setback as the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has struck out two of their applications.
Theliberationnews gathered that the petitioners had in a motion filed on May 22 sought the court’s leave to issue and deliver interrogatories on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
They had intended, by the interrogatories, to obtain more information from INEC.
In the second, filed on June 2, the petitioners sought the court’s permission to have the first application heard outside the pre-hearing session.
In a ruling on Saturday, the court’s five-member panel was unanimous that the two applications were without, having been filed outside the time allowed by law, a development which denied the court the jurisdiction to hear them.
The Presiding Justice (PJ), Justice Haruna Tsammani noted that the petitioners’ lawyers were not diligent in their conduct which informed why they did not file the applications within the time allowed.
Justice Tsammani held that the petitioners did not establish any circumstance of extreme urgency that would have made the court to exercise discretion in their favour.
Reacting to the judgment,
Jubril Okupeta SAN counsel for Peter Obi and Labour Party, said, “What we made was a request and it was struck out because it was not filled earlier, so we other ways of calling INEC to come and answer questions; there are many ways to kill a rat”
