We’ve Engage 20 SANS To Challenge Presidential Poll Outcome – Labour Party

The Labour Party announced that on behalf of Peter Obi, its presidential candidate, it had retained the services of at least 20 senior advocates of Nigeria (SAN) to challenge the results of the presidential election held on February 25.

Sources within the party claimed that materials for use as evidence in court were being provided to the lawyers chosen from various chambers.

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Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress’s candidate and the winner of the closely fought election, was declared the victor last Wednesday.

Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the LP flag bearer, who got 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes respectively.

Atiku and Obi, however, disagreed with the Independent National Electoral Commission’s results and asserted during separate press conferences that there was significant fraud and violence in the election.

Last Friday, the drama reportedly took a turn when it was claimed that the two main opposition candidates had sought the court to request permission to review the voting papers.

At least six states – Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Sokoto – had dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court over the conduct of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections before withdrawing the case last Friday.

But, Umar Farouk, the national secretary of the Labour Party, revealed that some SANs had expressed willingness in taking part in the legal struggle to support Obi’s case.

Farouk stated that the LP placed its hope in the judiciary to take the appropriate action while acknowledging that INEC had lost its independence due to its alleged complicity with the ruling APC by awarding Tinubu the victory.

“We have more than 20 SANs that are willing to participate and offer their services for the renewal and emergence of a new Nigeria. As I am talking to you, our lawyers are working on it.

“But this is not something we can discuss on the pages of a newspaper. All I can tell you is that we have started ‘trekking’ to the court,” he said.

Asked if the leadership of the party and the candidate had been able to garner concrete evidence other than the alleged isolated incidents the APC claimed the Labour Party was dangling to get public sympathy, Farouk said, “The court is not a polling box that they can smash and put in what they want.

“If the APC thinks they can pre-empt the court, let them do it. They had earlier pre-empted the election that they were going to win by hook or crook and they had claimed they won. Let’s wait and see. Unlike INEC, the judiciary is a different thing.

“We have seen how independent the commission is. But we need to also examine how independent the judiciary also is in a matter of this magnitude. Let’s see the solace it can offer the masses. Let’s see if the judiciary has also shattered the hope of Nigerians just as INEC did.”

But, Farouk was unable to provide a precise timeframe for when the case would be filed.

“We are saying Obi is the winner from the record we have before us. But INEC did something else. They hurriedly carried out the plan of their paymaster.

“Therefore we have every reason to claim victory if it is being denied.

On the part of Atiku and the PDP, they have the right and data to claim that their mandate was stolen. The only arbiter now is the court.

So many people can claim one thing. It is the judiciary that gives a verdict based on the evidence before it.”