Legal icon, Wole Olanipekun and 49 other lawyers have offered to defend the victory of President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Election Tribunal.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and one-time President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is leading the team of legal giants.
The lawyers are waiting to be served with the petitions of the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi.
Both opposition candidates have registered their displeasure with the declaration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate as winner of the February 25 poll.
Tinubu got 8, 794,726 votes to beat Atiku and Obi to the second and third positions with 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 scores respectively.
But the first and second runners-up have sought leave of the tribunal to inspect some election materials used for the poll.
Members of the Tinubu legal team are to hold their preliminary meeting today in Lagos. They are to discuss some of the issues in the public domain which may be included in the petitions of the PDP and the LP.
There were indications that some PDP governors may join in the case before the tribunal to testify that the poll was free and fair in their states.
Investigations showed that some of the 50 SANs were said to have opted for free service to actualise Tinubu’s mandate.
It was learnt that a few of them joined the team based on the conviction that the presidential election was the “freest and fairest” in the country’s history with large-scale upsets.
Some of the senior lawyers in the vanguard of defending Tinubu’s mandate are a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Akin Olujimi, Yusuf Ali, Lateef Fagbemi, A.U. Mustapha, Ahmed Raji, Abiodun Owonikoko, Kemi Pinheiro, Niyi Akintola and H.M. Liman.
Others are: Taiwo Osipitan, Babatunde Ogala, Roland Otaru, James Onoja, Muiz Banire, Olusola Oke and a former Bauchi State Governor Mohammed Abubakar.