President Bola Tinubu has issued a stern warning to the Presidential Election Tribunal, urging them not to annul the 2023 election on the grounds that obtaining 25 percent of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, is a constitutional requirement for being elected as the country’s president.
In the February 25 presidential election, the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Tinubu as the winner with 8,794,726 votes. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party secured the second and third positions with 6,984,520 votes and 6,101,533 votes, respectively.
Following the election, Atiku, Obi, and their respective parties filed petitions challenging the outcome at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja. One of their arguments is that Tinubu failed to secure 25 percent of the valid votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory, as stipulated by the Nigerian Constitution. Tinubu only secured 19 percent of the valid votes cast in the FCT.
Section 134(2)(b) of the Constitution states that a candidate for the office of President shall be deemed duly elected if they have the highest number of votes and not less than one-quarter of the votes in at least two-thirds of all the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Tinubu’s lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), argued that there is no superiority between the votes secured in highly populous states like Lagos or Kano and the least populous states like Bayelsa, Ebonyi, and Ekiti. He emphasized that the Constitution treats the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, “as if” it is the 37th state, as stated in Section 299 of the Constitution.
Olanipekun further emphasized that nullifying the entire national election due to the nullification of the election in one state, some local government areas, wards, and units would lead to absurdity and injustice. He urged the court to interpret the Constitution conjunctively, ensuring that residents of the FCT do not have any special voting rights over residents of other states.
The Presidential Election Petition Court has reserved judgment on the petition filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) seeking the nullification of President Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s victory in the 2023 election. The tribunal will deliver the judgment alongside the judgments regarding the petitions filed by Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, seeking similar reliefs.
The fate of the 2023 election now rests in the hands of the tribunal, which will carefully consider the arguments presented by all parties involved before reaching a decision.