Hopes of Nigerians to follow up live proceedings of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) through television transmission were on Monday dashed as the Court threw out the requests of the petitioners, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP).
Both Atiku Abubakar of PDP and Peter Obi of LP, as presidential candidates of the respective parties, had through their Legal Counsels asked the PEPC to allow for live transmission of the Courts proceedings to ensure transparency and allow Nigerians who are interested to follow up.
However, All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) objected to the live transmission of the proceedings.
Signal to the Monday’s dismissal of PDP and LP requests started last Saturday, when the PEPC directed that no body entering the court room should be allowed with any phone, laptop or any other recording garget.
On Monday, the Chairman of the Presidential Election Petition Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, 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.
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, a week later, Tinubu
opposed the application for a live broadcast of the proceedings of the election petition, describing it as an abuse of court process.
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