Nine Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) have been chosen by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to defend the presidential election results on February 25.

The selected lawyers by the electoral umpire will be led by Abubakar Mahmoud, former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

Other members of the legal team include Stephen Adehi (SAN), Oluwakemi Pinheiro (SAN), Miannaya Essien (SAN), and Abdullahi Aliyu (SAN)

Also, four other senior advocates who are staff of INEC’s legal department will join the team alongside Messrs Garba Hassan, Musa Attah, and Patricia Obi.

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The electoral body budgeted over N3bn to defend the outcomes of the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections and the March 18 governorship and state assembly polls.

More than 100 election petitions have been filed by aggrieved candidates and their parties across the country in the aftermath of the polls.

The presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar; the Labour Party, Peter Obi; the Action Alliance, Solomon Okangbuan; Allied Peoples Movement, Chichi Ojei, have also filed petitions seeking for the nullification of the outcome of the presidential election results.

Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission on March 1, 2023, declared Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.

Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes to defeat Abubakar who polled 6,984,520 votes, and Obi who polled 6,101,533 votes in the presidential election.

General elections were held in Nigeria on 25 February 2023 to elect the president and vice president and members of the Senate and House of Representatives. Incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari is term-limited and could not seek re-election for a third term