By Aliyu Abdulwahid
He Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, and his party, the Congress of All Progressives (APC), opposed this Thursday a call for the live transmission of the proceedings of the Presidential Election Petition Court.
The opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, who are jointly challenging Tinubu’s election victory, asked the court to allow their proceedings to be broadcast live.
Arguing the request on Thursday, the petitioners’ legal team led by Chris Uche, a senior Nigerian lawyer, urged the court to allow live streaming of the proceedings due to the “domestic import” of the case.
“An integral part of the court’s constitutional duty to conduct proceedings in public is the discretion to allow public access to the proceedings, either physically or by electronic means,” Mr. Uche wrote in the petition.
He said that the INEC, Mr. Tinubu and the APC opposed his motion without citing any statutory legislation against it.
“Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
“If the election result was not broadcast, at least the court proceedings should be broadcast in real time,” Uche said.
Broadcasting the proceedings live, Uche said, would make the lawyers behave in court.
Objection
But objecting to the request, INEC lawyer Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) said that media coverage of the court proceedings is controlled worldwide, adding that allowing the media to broadcast the proceedings live would nullify the solemn atmosphere. of the court.
“This app is unnecessary and unnecessary and we should be able to focus on business,”
He said that Uche’s claim that a live broadcast of the proceedings would make the lawyers sit down was false.
Similarly objecting to the application, Mr. Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), urged the court to dismiss the application with the applicant’s costs.
“My Lord, we are here on serious business, this is not a stadium or crusade ground. Even an area court cannot grant such sentences,” Olanipekun said.
He said the media already had reporters present in court, therefore there would be no further need for live streaming of the proceedings.
Questioning the intent behind the petitioners’ request, Mr. Olanipekun said: “There is no nexus between the request for live streaming of the proceedings and the petitioners’ request.
“The court should not make an order that it cannot supervise.”
Citing what he said was the UK example, he said only the sentencing part of a criminal trial can be broadcast live in the country.
Unlike the UK, where there is a handy direction stipulating what type of case and aspect of it can be broadcast live, Olanipekun said, there is no such policy in Nigeria for or against the PDP application.
‘Like older brother Naija’
APC lawyer Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, similarly urged the court to dismiss the PDP application, which he likened to a call for a reality TV show known as Big Brother Naija.
He said the court should not allow a live broadcast like the one done on a show called “Big Brother Naija,” a performance that drew laughter from the packed courtroom.
But Uche, in his response, warned that Fagbemi was trying to trivialize his application by comparing it to a call for a show like Big Brother Naija.
Subsequently, the five-member panel headed by Haruna Tsammani reserved a ruling on the request. The panel did not set any particular date for the ruling.
Background
The president of the Nigerian bar association, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Yakubu Maikayu, called in March for live streaming of court hearings of all election petition cases across the country to boost public confidence that disappears in the judiciary.
In addition to the presidential election petition court, there are election petition courts established throughout the country to hear disputes arising from this year’s gubernatorial, National Assembly, and state assembly elections.
There are three petitions pending at the Abuja Presidential Election Appeal Court challenging Mr. Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 presidential election.
Aside from the petition filed by Atiku, the other petitioners are the Labor Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
Alleging various violations and various forms of manipulation of the results during the disputed vote, Atiku and Mr. Obi have asked the court to either declare them the winners of the election or cancel the election and order a new one.
APM, for its part, called on the court to declare Atiku, the PDP candidate, the winner of the elections.
