FACT-CHECK: No Evidence Links INEC Chair Nominee Joash Amupitan to Tinubu’s 2023 Election Petition Legal Team

BY: Mustapha Lawal

Claim:
Multiple social media posts claim that Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN), the newly nominated Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was part of President Bola Tinubu’s legal team during the 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal and subsequent Supreme Court appeals.

Verdict: 

False! There is no factual basis for the claim that Professor Joash Amupitan was part of Tinubu’s 2023 election legal team. 

Background

Following President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s nomination of Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN) to succeed Professor Mahmood Yakubu as Chairman of INEC in October 2025, a flurry of online posts alleged that the law professor had previously served on Tinubu’s legal team during the 2023 presidential election dispute.

On X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, several users, including accounts such as @salihuharunaakp and @uwemediimoh, circulated long narratives describing Amupitan as “lead counsel for Tinubu and the APC” during the tribunal proceedings. These posts argued that his supposed role compromised his neutrality and called for rejection of his appointment.

Who Is Professor Joash Amupitan (SAN)?

Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration) at the University of Jos, and Pro-Chancellor of Joseph Ayo Babalola University.

He is a specialist in corporate governance, evidence law, and privatisation, with over three decades of teaching and administrative experience. His career has been primarily academic and advisory, not one focused on courtroom litigation. President Tinubu, in nominating him, described him as “apolitical and a man of integrity”.

The allegations that he was a part of the president legal team quickly gained traction amid public debates over INEC’s independence, feeding into wider distrust of government appointments. But is it a fact? FactCheckAfrica checked. 

Verification

To verify the claim, FactCheckAfrica reviewed certified true copies (CTCs) (downloadable here and here) of the judgements delivered by both the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) and the Supreme Court in 2023. These documents list the official names of all legal representatives who appeared for the parties involved.

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) delivered its consolidated judgement on September 6, 2023, addressing three major petitions:

• CA/PEPC/03/2023 – Peter Obi & Labour Party vs. INEC, Tinubu, Shettima, and APC
• CA/PEPC/04/2023 – Allied Peoples Movement (APM) vs. INEC, APC, Tinubu, Shettima, and Kabir Masari
• CA/PEPC/05/2023 – Atiku Abubakar & PDP vs. INEC, Tinubu, and APC

Across all three judgements, Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan’s name does not appear among any of the listed counsels. Instead, the records show that Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima were represented by a senior team led by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) and including Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), Yusuf Ali (SAN), Prof. Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), Babtunde Ogala (SAN), Funmilayo Quadri (SAN), Kehinde Ogunwumiju (SAN), A.U. Mustapha (SAN), Dr. Hassan Liman (SAN), Olatunde Busari (SAN), and several others.

The APC, as the 4th respondent, was represented by another team led by Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) (now Attorney-General of the Federation), Chief Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), Charles Edosomwan (SAN), Afolabi Fashanu (SAN), Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN), Solomon Umoh (SAN), and others. At no point was Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan listed in the appearances or filings before the tribunal.

At the Supreme Court, which delivered its final judgements on October 26, 2023, in two key appeals: 

• SC/CV/937/2023 (Peter Obi & LP vs. INEC, Tinubu, Shettima, and APC)
• SC/CV/935/2023 (Atiku Abubakar & PDP vs. INEC, Tinubu, and APC) 

The official lists of appearances again contain no mention of Professor Amupitan. For Tinubu and Shettima, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) led the defence, alongside Yusuf Ali (SAN), Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), Prof. Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), and Akintola Makinde. 

The APC was represented by Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), Chief Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), Chief Afolabi Fashanu (SAN), and Charles Uwensuyi-Edosomwan (SAN). Again, Amupitan’s name is absent from all official documents reviewed

Further, FactCheckAfrica reviewed major media coverage of the petitions, including reports by Premium Times, Channels Television, TheCable, and Vanguard, all of which published detailed lists of the legal teams for Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, and Peter Obi. None of these reports identified Amupitan as part of Tinubu’s defence team.

A review of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) records and academic profiles confirms that Professor Amupitan is primarily a legal scholar and university administrator, not a courtroom advocate involved in partisan electoral litigation.

Official Clarification from the Tinubu Legal Team

The erstwhile Coordinator of Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team, Babatunde Ogala (SAN), has also publicly denied the claim, describing it as “false and misleading”. 

In a signed statement, Ogala affirmed, “For the avoidance of doubt, Prof. Amupitan SAN was never, at any point, a member of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team. His name does not appear among the over 123 legal practitioners formally engaged for that assignment, of whom sixty were Senior Advocates of Nigeria.”

He further challenged anyone making the allegation to produce verifiable evidence, noting that any member of the public could apply for CTCs of the legal filings to confirm the truth. Ogala added that while political discourse is healthy, “deliberately twisting facts to inflame public sentiment serves no one and only endangers our collective peace.”

Possible Source of the Confusion

Evidence suggests that the misinformation possibly originated from a mix-up between Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN) and Prof. Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), the latter being a University of Lagos law professor who actually appeared for Tinubu in the 2023 tribunal.

The phonetic similarity between Amupitan and Osipitan appears to have led to the confusion, which was then amplified by politically charged narratives on social media. This false association was further circulated by partisan influencers, with no supporting documentary proof.

Conclusion:

FactCheckAfrica finds no evidence that Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN) was a member of President Bola Tinubu’s legal defence team during the 2023 Presidential Election Petition proceedings. The claim possibly originated from misidentification and online speculation and remains unsupported by any documentary or official source.