April 02, (THEWILL) – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appointed at least nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) to defend its conduct of the February 25, 2023, presidential election.
The team, according to City Lawyer, is to be led by former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President, Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud (SAN). Other members of the team are Stephen Adehi (SAN), Oluwakemi Pinheiro (SAN), Miannaya Essien (SAN), and Abdullahi Aliyu (SAN).
It was gathered from a member of the legal team that four SANs, who are staff of INEC’s Legal Department, are also members of the legal team alongside Messrs Garba Hassan, Musa Attah, and Ms. Patricia Obi.
INEC had on March 1, 2023, declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
National Chairman of the Commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who doubled as the Chief Returning Officer of the Presidential election, declared that Tinubu polled a total of 8,794,726 votes and also scored over 25 per cent of the votes cast in 30 states, while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 6,984,520 votes to take the second position.
According to the electoral umpire, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, came third in the election with a total of 6,101,533 votes, while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
While the election was criticised by many observers and the opposition parties, Atiku, Obi, and two other presidential candidates, including Solomon Okangbuan of the Action Alliance (AA) and Chichi Ojei of the Allied People’s Movement (APM) have challenged INEC’s declaration of Tinubu as President-elect at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting at the Appeal Court in Abuja.
