25% of Votes from FCT is not a pre-requisite for winning Presidential Election, says INEC

A presidential candidate in an election in Nigeria must not ganner 25% of the votes from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to win the country’s presidential election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has clarified

INEC was responding to a legal challenge from the Peoples Democratic Party’s Atiku Abubakar, who claimed that he had been unfairly denied victory in the February 25 election.

The commission added that the FCT does not have any special status that would require a candidate to win a certain percentage of votes in the territory to win the presidential election.

INEC declared that President-elect Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) met all the legal requirements to be announced as the winner.

INEC also stated that the petition filed by the Labour Party’s Peter Obi was incompetent. Atiku and Obi have challenged INEC’s declaration of Tinubu as the winner, but INEC urged the tribunal to dismiss Atiku’s petition, stating that Tinubu won 25% of the valid votes cast in 29 states of the federation, which satisfied the legal requirements for victory.