Photo: (L-R) INEC boss, Yakubu, ex-NBA President, Abubakar Mahmoud.
INEC appoints ex-NBA president, 9 SANs for election tribunal cases
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appointed Abubakar Mahmoud, former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as its lead counsel nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) to defend it at election tribunals.
The electoral umpire’s decision follows the petitions filed against the outcome of the recently conducted general elections in Nigeria.
Other members of the legal team include Stephen Adehi (SAN), Oluwakemi Pinheiro (SAN), Miannaya Essien (SAN), and Abdullahi Aliyu (SAN).
Also named in the team are Messrs Garba Hassan, Musa Attah, and Patricia Obi, alongside four other senior advocates who are staff of INEC’s legal department.
On March 1, 2023, INEC declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the presidential elections.
Tinubu had secured 8,794,726 votes to defeat Abubakar who polled 6,984,520 votes, and Obi who had 6,101,533 votes in the presidential election.
However, the result of the election has been questioned by major opposing political parties.
Mr Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), filed petitions against INEC and Bola Tinubu, the president-elect.
The presidential election tribunal through a three-man panel had directed that petitions should be served on Tinubu through his political party, the APC.
Meanwhile, apart from the presidential election, some losers of the governorship polls across the country have expressed plans to challenge the outcome of the election in their states.
