No fewer than 500 private lawyers have volunteered to defend the Kano State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Nasir Gawuna, at the Supreme Court.
A spokesperson for the lawyers, under the aegis of the Guardians of Democracy and Rule of Law, Mr. Joseph Onwudiwe, announced this at a media briefing on Tuesday in Abuja.
Onwudiwe said the gesture was to enhance the country’s democracy.
“Nigerians have observed keenly 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 certain moves to blackmail the court into giving backing to wanton electoral malfeasance and vote heist.
“We will no longer fold our arms as lawyers and watch the judiciary being continuously harangued and the temple of justice desecrated by a group of people who failed to perfect an electoral heist,” he said.
Onwudiwe applauded the sound reasoning that resonated in the judgments of the tribunal and the Court of Appeal.
The lawyer said the judgments aligned with the yearnings and aspirations of the majority of Kano State voters as expressed in the valid number of votes cast in the March 18 governorship election.
He said the group was not surprised that Governor Abba Yusuf and his agents had become insistent in selling propaganda in the name of a contradiction in the CTC of the Appeal Court judgment.
“Nigerians will have nothing but pity for a party in a suit, finding no premise upon which to launch a successful appeal against a judgment backed by law and facts.
“May we repeat here that the judgment of the Court of Appeal in this case was a very straightforward one which rightly dismissed the appeal of Abba Yusuf and upheld his sack by the tribunal,” Onwudiwe said.
The lawyer noted that the courts envisaged clerical errors in judgment and embedded in their handbook and rules, enactments that empowered it to vary its judgment to reflect original intentions.
Onwudiwe urged Nigerians not to give in to the misleading narrative being pushed by those he called Yusuf’s agents who were grasping at the clerical error on page 67 of the CTC of the Court of Appeal judgment.
This, he said, was geared to bring the honourable justices who delivered the sound judgment to public disrepute.
According to him, the importance of the judiciary in keeping the country’s democracy alive and thriving can never be overemphasised.
“We are with the judiciary and we assure them of our unflinching support as they move to save Nigeria’s democracy from vote riggers and election fraudsters.
“We must sanitise our electoral system now and build a strong democratic wall against vote inflation and other electoral malfeasance,” Onwudiwe said.
He urged peace-loving Nigerians to rise in defence of the nation’s democracy.