The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party came second and third respectively with 6,984,520 votes and 6,101,533 votes respectively.
President Bola Tinubu has warned the Presidential Election Tribunal not to annul the 2023 election on the grounds that obtaining 25 per cent of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja is a constitutional requirement for being elected as the country's president.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party came second and third respectively with 6,984,520 votes and 6,101,533 votes respectively.
Atiku and Obi alongside their parties subsequently challenged the outcome of the presidential election by filing petitions to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja.
One of their arguments is that Tinubu failed to secure 25 per cent of the valid votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory, as stipulated by the Nigerian Constitution.
Tinubu only secured 19 per cent of the valid votes cast in the FCT.
Section 134(2)(b) of the Constitution states that: “A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected where there being more than two candidates for the election-
(a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election; and
(b) he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
But Tinubu, through his lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), argued that there is no superiority between the votes from voters secured in either Lagos or Kano, which are the most populous states and Bayelsa, Ebonyi and Ekiti, which are the least populous states, THISDAY reports.
Olanipekun further argued that, while Section 3(1) of the Constitution specifically lists the 36 States by their respective names, the sidenote reads thus: “States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”
Section 299, for ease of reference and clarity, provides thus: “The provisions of this Constitution shall apply to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja as if it were one of the States of the Federation…” The phrase ‘as if’ has been defined in Corpus Juris Secundum, page 298 as connoting “in the same manner and to the same extent.”
“May we draw the attention of the court to the fact that there is no punctuation (comma) in the entire section 134(2)(b) of the Constitution, particularly, immediately after the ‘States’ and the succeeding ‘and’ connecting the Federal Capital Territory with the States. In essence, the reading of the subsection has to be conjunctive and not disjunctive, as the Constitution clearly makes it so. Pressed further, by this constitutional imperative, the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, is taken ‘as if’ it is the 37th State, under and by virtue of section 299 of the Constitution.
“In my view, it would lead to absurdity and manifest injustice to nullify the election for the entire nation because of the nullification (sic) of the election of one State, some Local Government Areas, Wards and Units.”
He said, “With much respect, any other interpretation different from this will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.”
“In concluding our arguments on this issue, we urge the court to hold that any election where the electorate exercise their plebiscite, there is neither a ‘royal’ ballot nor ‘royal’ voter; and that residents of the FCT do not have any special voting right over residents of any other State of the federation, in a manner similar to the concepts of preferential shareholding in Company Law. We urge this court to resolve this issue against the petitioners and in favour of the respondent,” he pleaded.
On Friday, SaharaReporters reported that the Presidential Election Petition Court reserved judgement on the petition by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) to seek the nullification of President Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s victory in the 2023 election.
The Tribunal reserved the judgement in APM’s petition so that it can be delivered alongside the judgments regarding Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar’s petitions seeking similar reliefs.