The pre-hearing of the appeal brought by Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, against President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been postponed by the Presidential Election appeal Tribunal (PEPC) in Abuja.
The All Progressive Party (APC) candidate Tinubu's claim to have won the 2023 presidential election is being contested by Obi.
The tribunal, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, postponed the event to Friday, May 19, among other reasons because the parties were unable to come to an agreement on the papers.
The factional leaders of the Labour Party fought over seats at the presidential election petition court throughout the day's proceedings on Wednesday. Lamidi Apapa, the party's acting national chairman, and Akin Osuntokun, the director-general of Peter Obi's presidential campaign committee, got into a fight as the latter entered the courtroom.
Apapa asserted that he belongs in the plaintiffs' gallery since he is the legitimate leader of the Labour Party.
The National Women's Leader of the party, Dudu Manugu, attempted to appear on behalf of the Labour Party when the petition was summoned, but the Tribunal declined to accept Apapa's appearance.
According to Justice Haruna Tsamani, if two representatives of the party come, their appearance will not be recorded.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had only provided 30% of the documents requested from them, according to Labour Party counsel Livy Uzoukwu, so the meeting scheduled to decide on the documents to be tendered for hearing had not produced many results.
Uzoukwu noted that this goes against Mahmoud Yakubu, the INEC Chairman's pledge that all necessary documents will be made available.
He claimed that the party has not yet received any paperwork pertaining to Rivers State, where the resident electoral commissioner allegedly declared that no forms EC8A are ready for distribution but has failed to do so in writing despite requests.
The Labour Party's attorney did not show up for the meeting as scheduled and left the rescheduled meeting, according to INEC's counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud, who said that this astonished him.
Mahmoud stated that while the paperwork for the states of Rivers and Sokoto had been delivered, the Labour Party had declined to pay the fee of $1.5 million for Sokoto State and had not received Form EC8A for the state of Rivers.
Assuring the court that they were doing everything necessary to support the court in an open manner, he also mentioned that some documents had been delivered to the party, but they refused to collect them until they were finished.