By Abimbola Ogunnaike
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has said the party has already assembled a legal team that would meet the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) in court.
Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi had during separate press conferences on Thursday, 2 March, 2023, in Abuja, rejected the result of Saturday, 25 February, 2023, presidential poll, which gave victory to the candidate of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and resolved to challenge it in court.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, 3 March, 2023, in Abuja, the Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesperson of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo (SAN), said the party had constituted a team of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) who are ready to defend Tinubu’s victory if Atiku and Obi finally go to court.
Keyamo said, “We have already constituted our legal team. We have a team of volunteers as well, who are SANS and ready to go to court.”
Also, the Special Adviser on Media and Communications of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Alake, who spoke during the press conference, argued that the complaint over the electronic transmission of the result has no place in law.
“The complaint over the electronic transmission of the result is not supported by law. Section 38 of the Electoral Act 2022 referred to by the PDP and LP has nothing to do with the transmission of election results.
“Section 60, subsection 2 of the Act deals with the transmission of results and it is at the discretion of INEC. The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results,” Alake said.
“In any case, the process of transmitting results from polling units, whether real-time, two days later or at any time, cannot in any way change the results that have been announced right after the counting in the presence of the parties’ agents and to the hearing of the voters,” he added.
