The Chicago court revealed a notification of docket entry on Tuesday that suggests that Bola Tinubu’s lawyer was sneakily trying to move the hearing date of the case filed by Atiku Abubakar to a later date.
The hearing was supposedly meant to hold on September 12, 2023, but the lawyer had sent an email to the court asking for the date to be moved to September 13, 2023.
The court, however, has denied the motion and further lambasted the sneaky act of going behind the plaintiff’s attorney to request a later date. The court also mentioned that court action should always be requested by motion as opposed to sending an email in which no counsel of record regarding the case was copied.
The information containing the details of the email and court response was revealed on Twitter by a user, @agupard_a, who wrote a tweet: “For those who thought I was kidding when I said that BAT’s lawyers caused an email to be written to the Chicago court behind the back of Atiku’s lawyers, and the court refused.”
Court’s note:
“MINUTE entry before the Honorable Jeffrey T. Gilbert: The Court received an email from the offices of Henderson Parks, counsel for Intervenor Tinubu, asking that tomorrow’s hearing in this case be stricken and moved to 9/13/23. The Court docketed that email on the CM/ECF system [30]. Construing that email as a motion, the motion is denied. The email was not copied to any other counsel of record nor was it filed of record. Nor does it appear that any other counsel of record was consulted about moving tomorrow’s hearing. For the avoidance of doubt, no counsel (or counsel’s staff, the Henderson Parks email was not authored by a lawyer) should email the court without copying all other counsel of record in this case.
In addition, court action always should be requested by motion, not by email. In any event, the Court cannot accommodate a hearing on 9/13/23 in this matter. At the Court’s instance, however, the hearing set for 9/12/23 is reset to 2:30 p.m. in an attempt to accommodate Intervenor’s counsel’s schedule. This is a change in time only. The Court has some questions for the parties about the materials filed in support of and in opposition to the Application including materials filed today. The Court either will hear the Applicant’s sur reply to Intervenor Tinubu’s Sur-Response [27-1][27-2] filed today, or set a date for a written sur-reply to the sur-response. Out of town counsel may appear at the hearing on 9/12/23 by using the following number: Dial 650-479-3207, access code 180 946 24998. Press to bypass the Attendee ID number. Mailed notice(ber,).”