The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has held that it was not mandatory for a candidate in a presidential election to score 25 percent of votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be declared the winner.
In a judgment on the petition by Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP), the court held that INEC was written to have declared President Bola Tinubu the winner of the election even when he did not score 25 percent of votes in the FCT.
In the lead judgment, Justice Haruna Tsammani held that the FCT did not enjoy any special status in the Constitution and that the Constitution is meant to apply to the FCT as if it is one of the nation’s states.
The court faulted the claim by the petitioners that 25 percent votes were mandatory, describing such a claim as a misrepresentation of the intention of the framers of the Constitution.
While resolving all four issues in the petition against Obi and the LP, the court held that the petition was clearly unmeritorious.