Bola Tinubu Won’t Be Inaugurated If Appeal Court Issues Order

Chief Ambrose Albert Owuru, a Presidential candidate in the 2019 Presidential election and constitutional lawyer and his political party, Hope Democratic Party (HDP) has initiated a fresh suit seeking to stop Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Nigerian president-elect from being inaugurated as Nigeria’s new President on May 29, 2023.

The suit marked CA/CV/259/2023 has been instituted at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

Onwuru, who participated in the 2019 presidential poll on the platform of HDP wants President Muhammadu Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, stopped from taking any further steps on the 2023 presidential election that produced Tinubu as winner.

The politician, who was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1982 asked the Court of Appeal in Abuja to stop them from inaugurating the 2023 President-elect on May 29.

According to Owuru, he is the adjudged constitutional winner of the 2019 presidential election and he is against the inauguration of Tinubu or anybody else as successor to Buhari on the ground that he is yet to spend his tenure as required by law.

Also he insisted that President Buhari has illegally taken tenure of office since 2019 because the Supreme Court is yet to determine his petition filed in 2019 in which he challenged the declaration of Buhari as the winner of the election.

Owuru applied for “An order of prohibitory injunction compelling Buhari, AGF and INEC, their servants, agents and privies to preserve and give due cognizance and abstain from any further undertaking or engaging in any act of usurpation of adjudged acquired Constitutional rights and mandate as winner of the 2019 presidential election.”

He also applied for another order directing stating that any form of handover inauguration, organized by the president on the 29th of May 2023 outside the adjudged winner of the 2019 presidential election, subject of the pending appeal, remains as an “interim place holder” administration pending the hearing and determination of his substantive appeal on constitutional interpretation thereof.

He listed President Muhammadu Buhari, Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as 1st to 3rd, respondents respectively.

The motion on notice filed on his behalf by Mr Odion Peter has been served on President Buhari and AGF through their counsel, Mrs Maimuna Lami Ashiru of the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja, while that of the INEC was served through the Head of Legal Department and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mr S. O Ibrahim.

The affidavit deposed to by an Abuja based legal practitioner, Adebayo Anafowode and filed at the Court of Appeal in Abuja expressed apprehension that Owuru’s suit against Buhari would be rendered unimportance unless given quick hearing.

Meanwhile, no date has been fixed for hearing of the suit by the Court of Appeal.