The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, did not satisfy the constitutional requirements to be declared the winner of the February 25th election.
The commission noted that Atiku failed to secure at least one-quarter of the votes cast in at least two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Therefore, Atiku’s petition to challenge the outcome of the election should be dismissed by the Presidential Election Petition Court.
It should be noted that the election was conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 and was not marred by any corrupt practices, as stated by INEC. Meanwhile, the commission said that the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu, validly won the election. Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku, who scored 6,984,520 and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who got 6,101,533. Atiku and Tinubu won 12 states each while Obi won 11 states and the FCT.
Both Atiku and Obi are in court to challenge the declaration of Tinubu as the winner by INEC. However, the electoral umpire told the court that the FCT is not accorded any special status in the constitution as being erroneously portrayed by some political parties and candidates who lost the election. INEC argued that a candidate must not secure 25% of votes in the FCT to be declared the winner. The commission said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate met all the legal requirements to be announced as the winner.
INEC added that by the margin of the lead, it did not act hastily, as claimed by Atiku and the PDP in declaring Tinubu the winner. The Commission noted that Tinubu scored 25% of the valid votes cast in 29 states of the Federation. These states include Ekiti, Kwara, Osun, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Yobe, Lagos, Gombe, Adamawa, Katsina, Jigawa, Nasarawa, Niger, Benue, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Kogi, Bauchi, Plateau, Bayelsa, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto, Taraba, Borno, and Rivers.
The commission urged the Tribunal to dismiss Atiku’s petition, stating that the FCT, beyond being the country’s capital, has no special constitutional status over and above the other 36 states of the Federation, and hence, does not require a candidate to obtain at least 25% of the votes cast in the FCT before being declared the winner of the presidential election.
Comments are closed.