The suspended National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party (LP), Dr. Abayomi Arabambi, has questioned why the Presidential candidate of the party, Peter Obi, can not pay the N1.5 million fees required by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to release the necessary documents for the the pre-hearing at the presidential election tribunal.
According to him, Obi and the Labour Party’s refusal to pay the fees raises suspicions about the party’s will to hear the case against the President-elect, Bola Tinubu
OsunDaily News gathered that Arabambi asserted that Obi and the Labour Party were deceiving Nigerian youths in believing they are fighting for a lost mandate.
He said the development which was revealed by the lead counsel to Obi, Professor Livy Uzuokwu, was deceptive and a ploy to deny Nigerians the mandate of the party in the presidential election tribunal hearing.
It would be recalled that Uzuokwu had yesterday prayed the court to compel INEC to release the information the legal team needs for the hearing of the case.
But the INEC legal team as well accused Obi’s team of refusal to pay N1.5 million, which was the fees required to release the needed information for hearing.
Reacting to this position, Arabambi noted that if the Labour Party under the leadership of Julius Abure failed to comply with the court directive on pre-hearing, it may impact negatively on the case of its Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi.
He said “Something happened at the election Tribunal yesterday, it is unfortunate that the lead lawyer will write letter to INEC that they do not have N1,500,000 to pay knowing fully well that the pre hearing session will terminate on Sunday.
“That means if we fail to do the needful, our petition would be dismissed.
“Now what will 13 SAN be doing till April 17 when they were asked to meet INEC, collect all necessary documents only for their lead counsel to say oh, I have just been able to get 30 percent of the documents requested for.
“The INEC led counsel said they invited him on Friday, he said he was at a party. A learned silk, Professor Ananaba went on behalf of them. They asked him to come on Monday, they did not show up, Tuesday, they did not show up, only for them to come to court on Wednesday, where Prof. Livy was asking the court for extension.
“Which the court ruled yesterday, that they will not extend it, in line with the electoral Act, that it will only take 14 days. And they told them the court will not sit on Saturday and Sunday, today is Thursday. We have Friday and Saturday.
“So how do we now work together, how do we get all these documents and so that we can now go to the hearing session because once we fail to cross the hurdle of the hearing session our petition will be dismissed.
“They know what they were doing, how can you say Obi cannot afford N1.5m. They are either working for PDP or working for APC.
“They just want to deceive the youth of Nigeria to be following their deceptive nature and this was evidence yesterday, they accused our executive of collecting money from APC.
“Yesterday, Akpabio and deputy Chairman of the APC, went to visit them and they accepted him.”
