Plot to halt Tinubu’s inauguration on May 29 unveiled as lawyer files suit at Appeal Court

Barely 34 days to the inauguration of the President-elect, Mr Bola Tinubu, a suit was on Tuesday filed at the Court of Appeal in Abuja to stop the inauguration.

A motion on notice has been instituted at the court via a suit no. CA/CV/259/2023 is instituted by a Presidential Candidate in the 2019 election and constitutional lawyer, Chief Ambrose Albert Owuru and his political party, Hope Democratic Party (HDP).

Owuru, who was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1982, is urging the Court to prohibit President Muhammadu Buhari, Attorney General of the Federation and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from going ahead with the event on May 29.

He also wants Buhari, the AGF and the INEC stopped from taking any further steps on the 2023 presidential election that produced Tinubu as winner.

Owuru, who claimed to be the constitutional winner of the 2019 presidential election predicated his grouse against inauguration of Tinubu or anybody else as successor to Buhari on the ground that he is the constitutionally adjudged winner of the 2019 election and has not spent his tenure as required by law.

Owuru insisted that President Buhari has been usurping his tenure of office since 2019 because the Supreme Court has not determined his petition filed in 2019 in which he challenged the purported declaration of Buhari as the election winner.

In his motion on notice marked CA/CV/259/2023 just filled at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, 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 and placing on notice that any form of handover inauguration, organized and superintended by Buhari on 29th May 2023 outside the adjudged winner of the 2019 presidential election, subject of the pending appeal, remains and is viewed as an “interim place holder” administration pending the hearing and determination of his substantive appeal on constitutional interpretation thereof.

Respondents in the motion on notice are 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 suit was filed on his behalf by Mr Odion Peter and 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.

An eight-paragraph affidavit in support of the suit is asking the Court of Appeal to give it an expeditious hearing before the inauguration of Tinubu.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.