Candidates not required to secure 25% FCT votes to win presidential election– INEC

A candidate does not need to win a presidential election in the nation with 25% of the vote in the Federal Capital Territory, according to the Independent National Election Commission, INEC.

Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP) presidential candidate, reportedly could not meet the constitutional conditions to be recognized as the victor of the election on February 25.

Also, it called Peter Obi's appeal for the Labour Party inept.

According to the committee, Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, legitimately won the poll on February 25.

Remember that Tinubu received 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku's 6,984,520 and Peter Obi's 6,101,533 votes for the Labour Party. While Obi won 11 states and the FCT, Atiku and Tinubu each won 12 states.

Atiku and Obi are both in court contesting INEC's proclamation of Tinubu as the winner, but the electoral umpire informed the court that the FCT is not given any special status in the constitution, despite what several political parties and unsuccessful candidates had falsely claimed.

According to the panel, the candidate from the All Progressives Congress (APC) complied with all legal conditions to be declared the winner.

It was contended that in order to be declared victorious, a candidate needed less than 25% of the vote in the FCT.

According to INEC, the APC candidate received 25% of the legitimate votes cast in the 29 states that make up the Federation.

According to the statement, it did not act hurriedly in announcing Tinubu as the winner, contrary to what Atiku and the PDP alleged.

The Commission noted that Tinubu scored 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in 29 states, namely: 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.

It added that the FCT, beyond being the country’s capital “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.

Then, the panel asked the Tribunal to reject Atiku's case.

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