Report says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appointed no fewer than nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) to defend the results of the February 25 presidential election.
Remember that the All Progressives Congress candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, was pronounced the winner of the contentious election by INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu on March 1, 2023.
A number of the unsuccessful candidates who believe the committee erred in naming Tinubu the winner because he did not fulfil all of the constitutional prerequisites for emergence as a contender are contesting his victory.
Also, due to INEC’s inability to fulfil its pre-election pledge to post polling unit results to its result-viewing portal in real-time, the candidates and their political parties accused INEC of tampering with the election results.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Solomon Okangbuan of the Action Alliance (AA), and Chichi Ojei of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) have all filed applications to have the results of the presidential election thrown out.
But, according to City Lawyer, the commission has assembled a team of nine SANs to be chaired by former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Abubakar Mahmoud in an effort to protect the outcome.
Stephen Adehi (SAN), Oluwakemi Pinheiro (SAN), Miannaya Essien (SAN), and Abdullahi Aliyu (SAN) are additional team members.
Four SANs from the legal division of the commission, including Garba Hassan, Musa Attah, and Patricia Obi, have reportedly been drafted into the team, according to a member of the legal team.
According to reports, INEC has allocated N3 billion to the task of defending the outcomes of the gubernatorial and state assembly elections held on March 18 and the presidential and national assembly elections held on February 25. According to pulse Nigeria report.