A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Robert Clarke has reacted to the verdict of the Supreme Court over the 2023 presidential polls.
Clarke stated that the lawyers of Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi did not display professionalism in challenging President Bola Tinubu’s victory.
He argued that the counsels did not display a good sense of legal practice.
Clarke stated this on Thursday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The elder statesman insisted that there was a lack of due diligence in the appeals, adding that the legal representation of Atiku and Obi could have been better.
The senior lawyer said he would not even permit a junior member of his chamber to bring such a brief before 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.”
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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