THE President-elect, Bola Tinubu, is opposing the application by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for a live broadcast of the proceedings of the election petition.
In response to the application on Wednesday, Tinubu and the Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima, through the team of their lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun said the application is an abuse of court process.
They asked the presidential election petition court to dismiss the application, arguing that the relief demanded by the applicants is not such that the court could grant it.
Besides describing the application as frivolous, they said the court was not a rostrum, soapbox, stadium, nor theatre or an arena for public entertainment.
They stated, in the counter affidavit, that the application was linked to policy formulation of the court, which is outside the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT)’s jurisdiction as constituted.
They argued that Atiku and his party failed to draw the court’s attention to the fact that practice directions were made by the respective courts for the exercise.
The application, in their view, also touched on the powers and jurisdiction vested in the President of the Court of Appeal by the constitution, over which the court as presently constituted cannot entertain.
They held that it was in the interest of justice for the court to dismiss the said application filed by the petitioners.
They added that at the very best, the application was “academic, very otiose, very unnecessary, very time-wasting, most unusual and most unexpected, particularly, from a set of petitioners, who should be praying for the expeditious trial of their petition”.
