ADVERTISEMENT
In FCT, Peter Obi scored 281,717 votes to defeat Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar who had 90,902 and 74,199 votes, respectively (less than 25%).
But INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud SAN, had told the court that “FCT has no special constitutional status over and above the other 36 states of the federation to require a candidate in the presidential election to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT before being declared winner of the presidential election.”
In his response before the court, Obi took a swipe at INEC, accusing it of forgetting its role as an impartial umpire.
“INEC, forgetting its role as an electoral umpire, gave a notice of preliminary objection to challenge the alleged incompetence of the petition.
“The global best practices for electoral umpires in national elections is that an electoral umpire must avoid creating the impression that it has no respect for neutrality in an electoral contest between candidates,” Obi’s reply stated.
Peoplesmind
