No fewer than fifty lawyers have offered to defend the victory of President-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Election Tribunal.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
He scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party who scored 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes respectively.
However, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, and others rejected the outcome, saying the process was compromised and vowed to get their grievances heard in the court.
Following that, some lawyers have signified their interest to defend Tinubu’s mandate at the court and are currently awaiting Atiku and Obi’s petition.
Some of the senior lawyers defending Tinubu’s mandate are Wole Olanipekun Akin, Olujimi Yusuf Ali, Lateef Fagbemi, A.U. Mustapha, Ahmed Raji, Abiodun Owonikoko, Kemi Pinheiro, Niyi Akintola.
Others include H.M. Liman, Taiwo Osipitan, Babatunde Ogala, Roland Otaru, James Onoja, Muiz Banire, Olusola Oke, Mohammed Abubakar, and many others.
Meanwhile, Atiku Abubakar has led other party bigwigs to stage protests at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The leaders of the PDP arrived at the Legacy House, the party’s headquarters, at about 11 am on Monday, March 6, while they were joined by other party’s faithful.
At about 11:10 am, the protest march started with the PDP national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, and other national working committee members of the PDP.
Other chieftains of the PDP in the protest were Senator Adolphus Wabara, the chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT); Aminu Tambuwal, the governor of Sokoto state; Raymond Dokpesi; Boni Haruna, former governor of Adamawa state; and other chieftains of the party.