• Tuesday, April 23, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

INEC appoints nine SANs to defend elections at tribunal

INEC presents certificates to Saturday’s by-election winners

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has enlisted the services of no fewer than nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria to defend the results of the February 25 presidential election.

The team is to be led by former Nigerian Bar Association President, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) with members including Stephen Adehi (SAN), Oluwakemi Pinheiro (SAN), Miannaya Essien (SAN) and Abdullahi Aliyu (SAN).

It was also gathered that four staff members of INEC’s legal department are also members of the team.

Read also: NGF, EFCC, ICC, FIRS, CBN in crucial meeting on states security votes

INEC had budgeted over N3 billion to defend the results of the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections and the March 18 governorship and state assembly polls.

The Commission had on March 1 declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu of All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the presidential election.

Several candidates who lost in the election had rejected the outcome of the exercise and filed petitions against the Commission.

The Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, had since slammed the February 25 election, insisting it was marred by irregularities and operational failures.