The calls for the live telecast of proceedings of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, are in line with the need to bring back some of the lost faith and confidence of Nigerians in our institutions of public governance.

Apart from the two main opposition parties, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the Labour Party, LP, which tabled this request before the Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani-led Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, legal luminaries and Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs, Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana, and the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Yakubu Chonoko Maikyau, have thrown their heavy weights behind the call.

The discretion to grant or withhold this request lies with the Tribunal. We call on it to decide in favour of public telecast in the name of openness and transparency. Those against live telecast have argued that it would not stop the tribunal from reaching whatever verdict it intends to do.

They point to the live transmission of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, probe by a House of Representatives panel, which, after much drama, still ended scandalously when the main suspect, Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei, performed a fainting act.

The calls for the live broadcast are not meant to interfere with the tribunal’s verdict. When the public is allowed to witness the daily proceedings for themselves, it shows the judiciary has nothing to hide.

That alone will restore much of the confidence and trust in government institutions lost after the sordid bungling of the presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on February 25, 2023.

The Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC raised the confidence of the electorate when he promised live transmission of the results from the polling units to its national servers.

Its failure to live up to that expectation is chiefly responsible for the disappointment of millions of Nigerians, the wide condemnation of the conduct of the election, and the huge challenge to its outcome at the Tribunal.

Indeed, this created doubt over the promise by Justice Tsammani that his panel would ensure justice.

Live transmission will show the seriousness of the Tribunal’s pledge to be fair to all. It is not the outcome of the tribunal that matters so much as the open and fair manner in which its verdicts are reached in the public glare.

The Tribunal’s assignment is a rescue mission. If the public is able to see how the elections were truly won and lost, whoever becomes the President of Nigeria after that will enjoy a good measure of legitimacy and support.

The next president needs all the public support he can get to tackle the overwhelming economic, security, and integration challenges ahead.

Nigerians want to see the proceedings live.

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