Court to rule on live broadcast tomorrow

The Presidential Election Petitions Court has adjourned till May 22 to rule on the applications for live broadcast of proceedings and the modalities for witnesses. A five-member panel of justices presided by Justice Haruna Tsammani yesterday also announced that the adjourned date will also be used to modify the modalities agreed by parties for the main hearing.

The parties had earlier argued their positions on the application separately made by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi for the live broadcast of the court’s proceedings with INEC, Tinubu and APC objecting.

The parties in the matter also agreed on modalities for the testimonies of witnesses during the main hearing.

Counsel to the PDP and Atiku, Chris Uche (SAN) informed the court that they agreed to allocate more time for the main examination of star witnesses and expert witnesses for 30 minutes, cross examination 20 minutes and any re-examination five minutes.

He informed the court that although the law permits seven weeks to present their witnesses, they would need only about three weeks to do so.

The parties in the petitions of LP also agreed to allocate 30 minutes to expert or star witnesses, while other witness will have 10 minutes.

Cross examination and re-examination will be 20 and five minutes respectively.

The court adjourned for the final judgement the applications by INEC, Tinubu and APC seeking to strike out some paragraphs in Obi’s reply to their motion to strike out new issues raised in his reply over the double nomination of the APC vice-presidential candidate, Shettima.