Robert Clarke, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), responded to the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the 2023 presidential election.
According to Clarke, the attorneys for Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar did not act professionally when they contested President Bola Tinubu’s election.
He maintained that the attorneys’ understanding of legal procedure was lacking.
Clarke made this claim on Thursday during an appearance on Politics Today on Channels Television.
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The veteran politician maintained that the appeals lacked due thoroughness and that Atiku and Obi’s legal counsel could have been more effective.
The senior attorney declared that he would not even allow a member of his chamber to present a brief of that nature to the Supreme Court.
According to him, “I am not saying they (Atiku, Obi’s lawyers) fumbled the case; what I am saying is that they have not displayed a good sense of legal practice.
“Where the law is not allowed to put its heads up in a proceeding, it means that there is another law which prohibits their lawyers to have brought such. They know it, they still decided — either to please their supporters and allow such a matter to come before the Supreme Court.”
“I will not allow any junior in my chambers, even one or two years old to carry such a brief to go and argue in court when I have looked into all the facts and the facts are very clear. There is a limitation of time in election matters. You cannot do certain things.”
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Clarke said Obi and Atiku’s lawyers had the chance to present their evidence at a lower court but they did not.
“They had the opportunity as a pre-election matter but they never brought it out. They had the opportunity as a matter within a tribunal’s case but they never brought it. They are now coming and bringing matters that should have been argued in the lower tribunal and the Supreme Court will now be reviewing such evidence as an appellate matter and not as an original jurisdictional matter.”
“I am not blaming the lawyers; that is the last thing I would do, but I am sorry to say that the lawyers, with due respect to them, should have done a better job in this regard,” he added.
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