The 2023 Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) sitting in Abuja is set to deliver judgement on Monday (today) on the request for live coverage of proceedings.
The presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, had on May 8 filed an application for an order to allow the live coverage of the daily court proceedings on the case they brought against the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, following the February 25 election.
The Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, followed suit with a similar application asking that proceedings of the tribunal be televised lived.
Tinubu, a week later, opposed the application for a live broadcast of the proceedings of the election petition, describing it as an abuse of court process.
Specifically, Atiku and his party are praying the court for “An order directing the Court’s Registry and the parties on modalities for admission of Media Practitioners and their Equipment into the courtroom.”
The application filed on their behalf by their team of lawyers led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, is predicated amongst other grounds that: The matter before the Honourable Court is a dispute over the outcome of the Presidential Election held on 25th February 2023, a matter of national concern and public interest, involving citizens and voters in the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, who voted and participated in the said election; and the International Community as regards the workings of Nigeria’s Electoral Process”.
According to Atiku, being a unique electoral dispute with a peculiar constitutional dimension, it is a matter of public interest, whereof millions of Nigerian citizens and voters are stakeholders with a constitutional right to get access to the proceedings.
The motion was kicked against by counsels to Bola Tinubu and INEC.
