For its challenge of the announcement of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 elections, the campaign committee of Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi has ruled out hiring only lawyers of South-East ancestry.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, whom Obi’s party cited as a respondent in its pleas before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, was also a party to the legal dispute against Tinubu.
The denial follows the claim that the lawyers who met with Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the National Chairperson of INEC, were primarily chosen from a certain region of the nation.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and the leader of the Liberation Party, who received 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes, respectively, were defeated by Tinubu, who received 8,794,726 votes.
However, Atiku and Obi disagreed with the INEC’s results, each asserting during separate press conferences that there was widespread rigging and violence during the election.
When it was revealed that the two main opposition candidates had contacted the court to request permission to check the election materials used during the vote, the drama reportedly took a turn two weeks ago.
According to a source, Obi hired at least 20 Senior Advocates of Nigeria to challenge the results of the presidential election on February 25.
According to sources within the party, the legal team was assembled from several chambers throughout the nation to reclaim his mandate in the election when Tinubu was proclaimed the victor.
However, in response to the charge that Obi just chose his legal team from among his Igbo cousins, Yunusa Tanko, the Chief Spokesperson for the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, refuted the assertion by claiming that the initial list that caused all the controversy was inadequate.
Although the legal team that INEC received during the inspection was led by Senior Advocate of Nigeria Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, the PCC legal directorate is led by Victoria Shanti, who is from Adamawa State, according to a second batch of the list he provided on Tuesday.
“Victoria Shanti from Adamawa State is our head of department for the legal team itself,” stated Tanko. Yakubu Bawa, a legal legend from Katsina, who was also a member of the 60-person team that visited INEC on Monday, is on her side.
If you pay great attention to the names on the list, you will see that Obi’s legal team is diverse.
The Hon. J. S. Okutepa, Olumide Ayeni, Olalekan Ojo, Audu Anuga, Prof. Agbo Madaki, Nguemu Uja, Dayo Ashomibare, F. N. Ogbe, Precious Amukpo, David Agashua, L. Michaelson, and Olusola Ebisemi are additional members of the legal counsel.
