A sociopolitical organisation under the auspices of the coalition of North Central Youth Vanguard has expressed dissatisfaction over a ruling delivered by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) election petitions tribunal, quashing the victory of Abuja Municipal area council chairman, Hon. Christopher Maikalangu.
At a press briefing yesterday in Abuja, the group’s leader, David Adekunle, described the ruling as a miscarriage of justice, saying it is unsatisfying, unacceptable and will be appealed until justice is dispensed.
He said the constitution has clearly stated that only INEC has the exclusive right to conduct, count, and announce results in any election in the country and the INEC has done just that.
“Also, the constitution has spelled out the function of the judiciary to be interpreters of the law. It is now surprising that the tribunal ruling is characterized by attributions and apportioning of votes cast.
‘’The February 12 election result has since been declared in favour of the PDP’s candidate, who polled 19, 302 votes to beat his APC counterpart who polled 13, 249 votes.
“In a shocking twist in the election tribunal, the judges ruled that Murtala Karshi of the APC polled 21, 000 votes while the PDP who was declared and returned by INEC got 19, 000 votes. What a shocking arithmetic miscarriage of robbing Peter to pay Paul’’? he queried.
It can be recalled that a three-man election tribunal had on Friday, August 5, declared that contrary to the earlier result announced by the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) that declared the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s candidate, Maikalangu, the winner of the February 12, 2022 FCT area councils’ election, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Murtala Karshi, actually won the election.
Justice Munirat Folashade Oyekan, the head of the tribunal ruled that 8,000 votes were erroneously omitted and uncounted, therefore the APC candidate will now have 21,000 votes from the earlier 13, 249 votes thereby defeating the incumbent chairman, who polled 19,302 votes.
