Court Dismisses LP’s 25% FCT Votes Claim

• SODIQ YUSUF

The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) led by Justice Haruna Tsammani on Wednesday dismissed the claims of the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, that they won 25% of needed votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

OSUN DEFENDER reports that during the 2023 presidential election on February 25, LP and Obi won 25%, by securing about 59 per cent of the votes cast.

Neither President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (19 per cent) nor Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (15 per cent) scored up to 25 per cent of the votes in the Nigerian capital.

Ruling on the petition, the five-man tribunal dismissed the charge saying Abuja is like the other 36 states of the federation.

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According to the tribunal, FCT residents have no special privileges as the petitioners claimed.

Here are other decisions of the court so far:

Several paragraphs of Labour Party petition were struck out for being vague and lacking particulars of units affected.

Labour party petition did not challenge education qualification of @officialABAT sọ document in that regard tendred by the respondent not relevant.

Labour party failed to establish that @officialABAT was disqualified under section 137(1)(d) of the Constitution.

The court process is still in progress as at the time of this report.