Tribunal Dismisses PDP, LP’s Request For Live Coverage

The Chairman of the Presidential Election Petition Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, has dismissed the application for live coverage of court proceedings.

At the proceeding in Abuja on Monday, Justice Tsammani said the application by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) lacked merit.

In a unanimous decision, the panel held that the order sought by the petitioner was outside the scope of the petition, adding that televising of proceedings is not provided for in any law.

The panel stated that the court is created by the constitution and operates under the law by the Court of Appeal and that it was created to hear and determine the petitions before it and cannot act as a vanguard.

According to the justices, the undue pressure of allowing cameras into the courtroom should be avoided as the impact it will have on witnesses can not be predicted.

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The court is created to find out the truth and should be allowed to do so, said the panel, which held that the request was a novel and not supported with any law in the country for now.

The panel further held that the request was not rooted from the petition Atiku filed before the court.

Justice Tsammani added that the request was capable of turning the court to a stadium or marketplace and that must not be allowed for now.

The panel held that granting the request for a live broadcast of proceedings of the petition would not add any value to the petition.

Justice Tsammani finally held that the petition was without merit and subsequently dismissed it.

Atiku, Obi’s Applications

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, had filed an application on May 8 for an order to allow the live coverage of the daily court proceedings on the case they brought against the President-elect, Bola 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.

However, counsels for the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), opposed the move to consolidate the three different petitions.

They insisted that merging all the petitions, would affect their ability to effectively defend all the issues that were raised by the petitioners.

They maintained that the petitioners did not only raise various issues, but are seeking different reliefs.