No fewer than 500 private lawyers have indicated interest in defending the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate in Kano State, Nasir Gawuna, at the Supreme Court.
The development came a month after Governor Abba Yusuf and his New Nigerian People’s Party vowed to seek redress at the Supreme Court after Gawuna was affirmed winner of the March 18 governorship election in the state.
The three-member panel of the Appeal Court led by Justice M. A. Adumeh held that Yusuf was not in the membership register of his political party.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, the lawyers, under the aegis of the Guardians of Democracy and Rule of Law, said their resolve to mobilise 500 men was to rescue the country’s democracy from alleged vote riggers and people who are out to intimidate the judiciary.
A lawyer and spokesman for the team, Joseph Onwudiwe, told journalists that they will leave no stone unturned in defence of Gawuna’s mandate at the Supreme Court.
Onwudiwe said, “Nigerians have observed with keen interest the situation unfolding in Kano State regarding the March 18 governorship election. As a group saddled with the onerous responsibility of safeguarding our democratic ethos and values, we are no longer comfortable with the unwarranted attacks on the judiciary and moves to blackmail the court into giving backing to wanton electoral malfeasance and vote heists.
“We will no longer fold our arms as lawyers and watch the judiciary be continuously harangued, and the temple of justice desecrated by a group of people who failed to perfect an electoral heist and inflate their votes by over 165,000 in a desperate bid to win the March 18 2023 Kano State governorship election at all cost.
“It is on the above premise that we are mobilising over 500 of our members to defend Gawuna at the Supreme Court. We also salute the courage and sound reasoning that resonated in the judgments of the tribunal and the Court of Appeal.
“We are not surprised that the sacked governor of Kano State and his people have become insistent in selling propaganda in the name of a contradiction in the CTC of the Appeal Court judgment.”
Source: The Punch
