The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has engaged the service of nine prominent lawyers to defend the February 25 presidential election.

The nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) have been appointed by the commission to defend the election which producedw the president-elect, Bola Tinubu.

Meanwhile, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, have filed petitions to challenge Tinubu’s victory, claiming that the election was not credible.
The team, according to reports, is to be led by former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN).

Other members of the team are; Stephen Adehi (SAN), Oluwakemi Pinheiro (SAN), Miannaya Essien (SAN), and Abdullahi Aliyu (SAN).

A member of the legal team said four SANs, who are staff members of INEC’s legal department, are also members of the team alongside Garba Hassan, Musa Attah, and Patricia Obi.

Atiku had accused INEC of allegedly deducting his votes to ensure that Tinubu won.
His accusations were contained in a petition filed on Tuesday, March 21, at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja.

The LP’s legal team had earlier met with the chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja.

According to INEC on its Facebook page, the meeting was centred around the inspection of the electoral materials deployed by the commission on the February 25 presidential election.

The lawyers said they were at the commission’s headquarters to find out about the modalities required to have access to the sensitive electoral materials.

While addressing the legal practitioners, Yakubu assured the team that the commission had nothing to hide and that he was meeting with INEC commissioners at the state level to assemble all the necessary documents.