The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Thursday, opposed a call for the live broadcast 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 Mr Tinubu’s victory at the poll, had called on the court to allow live broadcast of its proceedings.
Arguing the application on Thursday, the petitioners’ legal team led by Chris Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, urged the court to allow the live broadcast of proceedings because of the “national import” of the case.
“An integral part of the constitutional duty of the court to hold proceedings in public is a discretion to allow public access to proceedings either physically or by electronic means,” Mr Uche wrote in the application.
He said INEC, Mr Tinubu, and the APC opposed his motion without citing any statutory legislation against it.
“That it has not been done before does not mean it should not be done.
“If the election result was not transmitted, at least the court proceedings should be transmitted real-time,” Mr Uche said.
Broadcasting the proceedings live, Mr Uche said, would make lawyers comport themselves in court.
Objection
But objecting to the application, INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), said media coverage of court proceedings is controlled across the world, adding that allowing media houses to transmit proceedings live would defeat the solemn atmosphere of the court.
“This application is unnecessary and uncalled for and we should be allowed to concentrate on business,” Mr Mahmoud argued.
He said Mr Uche’s claim that a live broadcast of the proceedings would make lawyers sit up was untrue.
Similarly objecting to the application, Mr Tinubu’s counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), urged the court to dismiss the application with cost awarded against the applicant.
“My Lord, we are here for serious business, this is not a stadium or crusade ground. Even an Area Court cannot grant such prayers,” Mr Olanipekun said.
He said media houses already had reporters present in court, therefore, there would be no further need for live transmission of the proceedings.
Questioning the intention behind the petitioners’ request, Mr Olanipekun said: “There is no nexus between the request for live broadcast of proceedings and the petitioners’ petition.
“The court should not make an order it cannot supervise.”
Citing what he said was the United Kingdom’s example, he said only the sentencing part of a criminal trial is allowed to be transmitted live in the country.
Unlike in the United Kingdom where there is a practice direction stipulating which type of case and aspect of it that can be transmitted live, Mr Olanipekun said, there is no such policy in Nigeria in support of or against PDP’s request.
‘Like Big Brother Naija’
APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, similarly urged the court to dismiss PDP’s application which he likened to a call for a reality television show known as Big Brother Naija.
He said the court should not allow such a live broadcast like it is done in a show called “Big Brother Naija,” a submission that triggered laughter across the packed courtroom.
But Mr Uche, in his reply, cautioned that Mr Fagbemi was trying to trivialise his application by likening it to a call for a show like Big Brother Naija.
The five-member panel led by Haruna Tsammani subsequently reserved a ruling on the application. The panel did not fix any particular date for the ruling.
Background
The president of the body of Nigerian lawyers, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Yakubu Maikayu, in March, called for the live broadcast of court hearings of all election petition cases across the country to boost the disappearing public confidence in the judiciary.
Apart from the presidential election petition court, there are election petition tribunals set up across the country to hear disputes arising from this year’s governorship, National Assembly, and state assembly elections.
There are three petitions pending at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja to challenge Mr Tinubu’s victory in the 25 February presidential election.
Apart from the petition filed by Atiku, the other petitioners are the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
Alleging various infractions and various forms of manipulation of results during the disputed poll, Atiku and Mr Obi have called on the court to declare them the winner of the election or cancel the election and order a fresh one.
APM, on its part, called on the court to declare Atiku, the candidate of the PDP, as the winner of the election.
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