Atiku inaugurates his legal team amid claims that several SAN's are being threatened not to join

FORMER vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has inaugurated his legal team headed by senior advocate of Nigeria Dr Livy Uzoukwu and charged them with the task of arguing his case before the elections tribunal.

On Saturday February 23, President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was re-elected for a second term after beating Alhaji Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP), with almost 4m votes. Following the collation of the results, the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec), declared President Buhari the winner with 15,084,862 votes, compared with 11,262,978 for Alhaji Abubakar.

However, the former vice president has refused to accept the results, claiming he was robbed of victory through rigging and electoral malpractices. Following his decision to head to contest the election results, Alhaji Abubakar has inaugurated his legal team amid claims that the government has threatened several lawyers, trying to get them not to represent him.

Alhaji Abubakar said: “I have just inaugurated my legal team and charged them with the responsibility of ensuring that our stolen mandate is retrieved and I am encouraged by the presence of fearless men and women of the bench.  The judiciary which had in the past discharged itself ably is once again being called upon to deliver judgement on this matter that will be untainted by lucre and uncowed by the threat of immoral power."

According to Alhaji Abubakar, the elections were marred by several malpractices including the use of the military to perfect voter intimidation and suppress the electorate in PDP strongholds. He also claimed there was connivance by Inec officials, security agents and the ruling party to manufacture bogus figures and outright falsification of the returns from polling units.

Alhaji Abubakar noted he has elected to proceed to the election petition tribunal having made known his misgivings to the National Peace Committee. According to Alhaji Abubakar, senior lawyers like Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu and Chief Kanu Agabi were being threatened by government not be part of his legal team.