The chairman of the tribunal, Justice O. M. Fagbemi, gave the warning while delivering her inaugural address to formally commence proceedings on Thursday.
At least, a total of 31 petitions had been filed by aggrieved litigants before the tribunal as of yesterday.
Justice Fagbemi noted that since the tribunal was time-bound, it required the support and cooperation of all parties to administer justice.
She said, “We solicit your support and cooperation in administering justice to all manner of people via a petition filed before the tribunal. As it is described, elections petitions before the tribunal are time bound and by their nature peculiar from other proceedings.
“We undertake to abide by our oath of office, and mandate in dispensing justice with the help of God almighty.
“We seize this opportunity to admonish counsels and litigants to desist from seeking unnecessary incessant adjournments and filing of frivolous applications and preliminary objections which is time wasting, purely an academic exercise, an exercise in futility aimed at perverting the course of justice.”
In an interview with journalists after the inaugural ceremony, the secretary of the tribunal, Abba Umaru Dahiru, said the court received 31 petitions.
He said that 22 of the petitions were for the State House of Assembly and nine for National Assembly polls, adding that one petition had been withdrawn.
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