Daily Trust Saturday

...We’ve assembled team of SANS to meet them in court – APC

- Saawua Terzungwe

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 Petet Obi had during separate press conference­s on Thursday in Abuja, rejected the result of last Saturday’s 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 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.

He 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.

He said, “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.”

“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.

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