Late filing of motion stalls S/Court’s hearing of Atiku’s appeal

The planned hearing of an appeal filed against the decision of the presidential election petition court (PEPC) by lawyers to Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was today stalled for late filling.

The appeal is against a ruling of the PEPC, in which it held that the Atiku and the PDP do not have a reply to an application filed on May 14, 2019 by the APC seeking among others, the dismissal of Atiku and the PDP challenging president Muhammadu Buhari’s victory at the last presidential election.

When the appeal was mentioned on today, lead lawyer to the appellants, Paul Erokoro (SAN) said he regretted that he filed a fresh application this morning for leave to bring supplementary records from the lower court.

Lawyers to the respondents – the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Buhari and the APC said they were just served with the application and needed time to examine it and react appropriately.

A five-man panel of the court, led by Justice Mary Peter-Odili, adjourned until August 20, 2019 for hearing.

Meanwhile, the supreme court has also adjourned hearing until august 20, in an application filed by the Peoples Democratic Party, and its candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, challenging the presidential election petitions tribunal’s rejection of their request to access the independent national electoral commission’s central server.

The PDP and Atiku alleged that the server housed the results of the poll electronically transmitted by the Independent National Electoral Commission during the exercise.

INEC has denied the claim, insisting that it never transmitted the results of the polls to any server, but that the results were collated and declared manually.