Falana Clears Controversy On FCT 25% Vote, Says Abuja Taken As 37th State

The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and human rights lawyer, Femi Falana has expressed his legal opinion on the controversy about candidate needing to win at leas 25 percent of the votes in the Federal Capital (FCT) to be declared president.

VerseNews Nigeria reports that the issue of the 25% votes has become a legal matter with various interpretations from different persons after the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the President-Elect who did not secure two-thirds of the FCT votes.

Falana while speaking on an interview with “Channels TV Sunday Politics” said votes cast in all parts of Nigeria are equal adding that Abuja has been interpreted to be the 37th state in the country.

He made his opinion while sighting the section 134 of the constitution which specifies that “a presidential candidate shall be declare winner if he scores the majority of lawful votes and a two-thirds majority of the states and the FCT.”

He therefore concluded that the court will have to decide on the issues since it has already being presented for proceedings.

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He said; “I had expressed an opinion on section 134 of the Constitution on the 23rd of January this year – that is about a month before the presidential election. On that occasion, I expressed a legal opinion and that is why I was very hesitant to join the bandwagon when lawyers started to give political interpretations of that section.

“I did state that there is no electoral college in Nigeria and therefore the votes cast or recorded in any part of the country are equal. Section 134 of the Constitution specifically requires a winner of a presidential election to meet certain requirements. The first one is to score the majority of lawful votes and the second is territorial spread, a two-thirds majority of the states and the Federal Capital Territory,” he noted.

“And since the FCT has been interpreted to be a 37th state in Nigeria for the purpose of the constitution I didn’t see any controversy at the material time and that was when I expressed my opinion.”

What you should know:

• The presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) was declared President-Elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) without securing 25% votes of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
• Section 134 of the 1999 constitution specifies that a presidential candidate shall be declare winner if he scores the majority of lawful votes and a two-thirds majority of the states and the FCT.
• The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate is challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election with the ‘25% votes’ as one of his points to seek the disqualification of Tinubu.