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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Presidential Election Petition Court has held that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) doesn’t attract special status and it is not more important than any other state in Nigeria.
Recall that Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had in their petitions said that President Bola Tinubu did not score 25% of the votes cast in Abuja, which made his victory at the poll invalid.
But ruling on the preliminary objections filed by the respondents, the chairman of the panel, Justice Haruna Tsammani, held that Abuja does not have a special status.
“This court admits that FCT doesn’t attract special status and it is not more important than any other state in Nigeria,” he said.
The tribunal said the interpretation of the 25 percent votes cast in the FCT by the Labour Party (LP) is “fallacious.”
“With due respect to counsel to the petitioners, their interpretation of the provision of the constitution, as regards the 25 percent in Abuja, is fallacious if not completely ludicrous.
“There is equality of rights irrespective of which part of the country voters prefer to live in.
“The futility and hollowness in the arguments of the petitioners that the votes of the voters in the FCT have more weight than others in other parts of the country to the extent that their votes purportedly have a greater effect on other votes,” the court added.