NEWS FLASH: Lawyer has asked the Appeal Court to stop Tinubu from taking office

At the Court of Appeal in Abuja, a new notice move has been filed to stop Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu from becoming Nigeria’s new president on May 29, 2023.

Chief Ambrose Albert Owuru, who is running for president in 2019 and is a constitutional lawyer, and his political party, the Hope Democratic Party (HDP), filed the new case with the number CA/CV/259/2023.

Owuru, who was admitted to the Nigerian Bar in 1982, is asking the Court of Appeal in Abuja to stop President Muhammadu Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from putting the 2023 President-elect into office on May 29.

The politician, who ran for president in 2019 on the ticket of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP), wants Buhari, the AGF, and INEC to stop doing anything else about the 2023 presidential election, which Tinubu won.

Owuru, who said he was the constitutionally chosen winner of the 2019 presidential election, complained that Tinubu or anyone else should not be sworn in as Buhari’s successor because he is the constitutionally chosen winner of the 2019 election and has not spent his term as the law requires.

Owuru said, among other things, that President Buhari has been stealing his job since 2019 because the Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on his petition, which he made in 2019 to question the fact that Buhari was supposedly declared the election winner.

In his motion on notice marked CA/CV/259/2023, which he just filed at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Owuru asked for “an order of prohibitory injunction compelling Buhari, AGF, and INEC, their servants, agents, and privies to preserve and give due notice of adjudged acquired Constitutional rights and mandate as winner of the 2019 presidential election and to refrain from any further act of usurpation.”

He also asked for another order directing and putting on notice that any form of handover inauguration organised and supervised by Buhari on May 29, 2023, outside the winner of the 2019 presidential election, which is the subject of the pending appeal, remains and is seen as a “interim place holder” administration until his substantive appeal on constitutional interpretation is heard and decided.

President Muhammadu Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are all listed as defendants in the move on notice.

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

An 8-paragraph document backs up the move, asking the Court of Appeal to hear the case quickly before Tinubu’s inauguration.

Adebayo Anafowode, a lawyer in Abuja, filed a statement at the Court of Appeal in Abuja saying that he was worried that Owuru’s lawsuit against Buhari would be thrown out if it wasn’t heard quickly.

The Court of Appeal has not yet decided when it will hear the case.