Presidential Poll: Why tribunal rejected live coverage

VANGUARD 

The Presidential Election Petitions Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, yesterday, rejected a request to allow its day-to-day proceedings on petitions seeking to nullify the outcome of the February 25, 2023, presidential election to be televised live.

Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel dismissed the application brought by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, as lacking in merit.

The court held that no regulatory framework or policy direction permitted it to grant such an application, adding that allowing cameras in the courtroom is a major judicial policy that must be supported by the law.

“The court can only be guided and act in accordance with the practice directions and procedures approved by the President of the Court of Appeal. We cannot permit a situation that may lead to the dramatisation of our proceedings,” Justice Tsammani held.
Besides, the court held that the request was not part of any relief in the petitions before it, saying it was merely hinged on a sentimental claim that it would benefit the electorate.

It maintained that the petitioners failed to establish how televising the proceedings would advance their case, adding that such live broadcast would not add any utilitarian value to the determination of the petitions.

More so, it noted that such a live broadcast must be planned and budgeted for.

While assuring the parties that it would secure their right to a fair hearing as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the court held that it found no reason to grant the application which it described as “novel and unprecedented.”

Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who came second in the election, initially made the request for live coverage, and Obi, subsequently, threw his weight behind the request.

The duo, through their lead lawyers, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, and Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, maintained that the petitions they lodged to query the declaration of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as the winner of the election, was “a matter of monumental national concern and public interest.

They argued that the case involved the interest of citizens and the electorate in the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, who they said participated in the presidential poll.

Atiku and the PDP insisted that their case against Tinubu was a unique electoral dispute with a peculiar constitutional dimension, and applied for;

“An order, directing the Court’s Registry and the parties on modalities for admission of media practitioners and their equipment into the courtroom.

“With the huge and tremendous technological advances and developments in Nigeria and beyond, including the current trend by this honourable court towards embracing electronic procedures, virtual hearing and electronic filing, a departure from the Rules to allow a regulated televising of the proceedings in this matter is in consonance with the maxim that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done.

“Televising court proceedings is not alien to this Honourable Court, and will enhance public confidence”, the petitioners added…