Hope James
A legal icon and one-time President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Wole Olanipekun, alongside 12 other senior lawyers are set to defend the victory of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu at the presidential election tribunal.
Olanipekun, a senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN, with other legal luminaries to ensure that Tinubu prevail over his archrivals, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, who have challenged his victory.
Tinubu, the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress, APC, emerged as the winner of the presidential election held on Saturday, February 25, with 8, 794,726 votes to beat Atiku and Obi to the second and third positions with 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 scores respectively.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, presented him with a Certificate of Return last week Wednesday.
But Obi and Atiku criticized INEC, arguing that the elections were marred with irregularities, and vowed to take their grievances to court.
However, Tinubu’s legal representatives are waiting to be served with the petitions of the candidates of the PDP’s Atiku and the LP’s Obi.
The first and second runners-up have however, sought leave of the tribunal to inspect some election materials used for the poll.
Investigations however, showed that some of the 50 SANs were said to have opted for free service to actualize Tinubu’s mandate.
It was gathered that a few of them joined the team based on the conviction that the presidential election was the “freest and fairest” in the country’s history with large-scale upsets.
Some of the senior lawyers in the vanguard of defending Tinubu’s mandate are a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Akin Olujimi, Yusuf Ali, Lateef Fagbemi, A.U. Mustapha, Ahmed Raji, Abiodun Owonikoko, Kemi Pinheiro, Niyi Akintola and H.M. Liman.
Others are: Taiwo Osipitan, Babatunde Ogala, Roland Otaru, James Onoja, Muiz Banire, Olusola Oke and a former Bauchi State Governor Mohammed Abubakar.
A source, who spoke in confidence, said: “Buoyed by patriotism and the need to protect the sanctity of the ballot, about 50 SANs have signed up to defend the mandate of Asiwaju Tinubu. The figure may be more in the next few days.
“Some of these legal giants have either not met with Tinubu or seeking any favour from him. They believe that the February 25 poll was credible and the best in the history of Nigeria.”
The source added: “In spite of the noise in the media, both Atiku and Obi have not served Tinubu and APC a copy of any petition before the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.
“But the defense team of Tinubu will meet on Tuesday (today) in Lagos ahead of allowing Atiku and Obi to get their acts together.”
Section 130 (1, 2and 3) of the Electoral Act 2022 says: “No election and return at any election under this Act shall be questioned in any manner other than by a petition complaining of an undue election or undue return presented to the competent tribunal or court in accordance with the provisions of the constitution or of this Act and in which the person elected or returned is joined as a party.
“In this part, ‘tribunal’ means-(a) in the case of the presidential election, the Court of Appeal; and (b) in the case of any other elections under this Act, the election tribunal established under the Constitution or by this Act.
“The election tribunals shall-(a) be constituted not later than 30 days before the election; and (b) when constituted, open their registries for business seven days before the election.”