Nigerian lawyer fined for seeking to stop Tinubu’s inauguration

Nigerian court has fined a former presidential candidate in the 2019 election for filing a suit to stop the inauguration of President-elect Bola Tinubu on 29 May.

The court ordered Ambrose Owuru, a lawyer, to pay $87,000 (£80,000) for pursuing a “strange” and “frivolous” suit.

Mr Owuru, who contested and lost in the 2019 presidential election, had urged the court to order that he be sworn in as president instead of Mr Tinubu.

The lawyer, who did not participate in the 2023 presidential election, claimed he won the 2019 presidential poll but was unjustly deprived of his victory.

Dismissing the suit in October 2019, the Supreme Court described it as an abuse of court process.

After Mr Tinubu was announced the winner of the 2023 presidential election, Mr Owuru filed another suit out of the facts of his 2019 case.

A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal in the capital Abuja dismissed the suit in a unanimous decision on Thursday.