2023: Nullifying Election On The Basis Of 25% FCT Votes Could Lead To Chaos – Tinubu Tells Tribunal

According to a report from THISDAY, as Nigerians continue to follow the ongoing Election Petitions Tribunal, APC presidential candidate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has warned the court that any attempt to invalidate the presidential election on the basis of 25% of the vote in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) could destabilize the entire nation.

According to a report from THISDAY, Tinubu’s attorney and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Wole Olanipekun, claimed that the Constitution does not support the Labour Party and People Democratic Party (PDP) claims that a candidate cannot be declared the winner unless he receives a required twenty-five percent of the total votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Furthermore, Olanipekun claimed that there isn’t a comma anywhere in the entirety of Section 134(2)(b) of the Constitution that designates Abuja as a unique entity distinct from the other states of the Federation. A condition of turmoil and disorder, he continued, may result from declaring the entire presidential election invalid on the grounds that twenty-five percent of the ballots were not counted in Abuja.

“May we draw the court’s attention to the fact that there is no punctuation (comma) in the entire section of 134(2)(b) of the Constitution, in particular after the word ‘States’ was used,” he wrote. In essence, because the Constitution expressly requires it, the subsection must be understood in a conjunctive rather than a disjunctive way. Section 299 of the Constitution treats the FCT as if it were the 37th State in response to this constitutional need.

Sincere apologies, but any alternative interpretation that differs from this will cause confusion, anarchy, absurdity, and a change in the legislative body’s intended outcomes. Numerous court rulings serve as examples of how our courts have always taken a deliberate approach to interpreting our Constitution.

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Source: THISDAY Online

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