25% FCT Votes Has No Constitutional Status To Determine Winner Of Presidential Election – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has said that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) “has no special constitutional status over and above the other 36 states of the Federation” to require a candidate in the presidential election to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT before being declared winner of the presidential election.”

VerseNews Nigeria reports that there has been argument that a candidate must secure 25% of votes in the Nigeria’s capital FCT, to win a presidential election in the country.

According to the Chaper 6, Part 1, Section of the constitution, “a candidate for an election to the office of President shall (b) has not less than one quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

But INEC in defending the election victory of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu said it is not compulsory for a candidate to secure the required 25% of vote cast in FCT  to emerge winner of presidential election.

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The Commission argued that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar did not meet the constitutional requirements to be declared winner of the February 25 election.

It also said the petition of Labour Party (LP) flag bearer, Peter Obi as incompetent and has no constitutional stand.

The commission said the President-elect, Bola Tinubu validly won the February 25 election.

This Online News Media reported that Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who scored 6,984,520 and Obi who got 6,101,533.

Atiku and Tinubu won 12 states each while Obi won 11 states and the FCT.