Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit filed to stop the inauguration of President Bola Tinubu.
The suit, was filed by five residents of the Federal Capital Territory a few days before the inauguration of Tinubu as the 16th president of Nigeria.
The judge also ordered the lawyer of the five Abuja residents, Chuks Nwachukwu to pay the sum of N10m each to the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Chief Justice of Nigeria :
There has been much ado about the 25% of FCT votes required to win a presidential election.
On account of this, two leading parties,The Peoples Democratic Party PDP and the Labour party LP and their candidates,Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have gone to court to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC declaration of Tinubu as winner of the February 25 Presidential election.
However, some legal luminaries have given different interpretations to Section 134(2) of the Constitution in which the 25% FCT votes cast is domiciled
mandatory requirement of obtaining at least 25% of the total votes cast in the FCT. While some describe the provision as unambiguous, that the section makes it mandatory for a presidential candidate to obtain at least 25% of the total votes cast in the FCT before he can be declared the winner of a presidential election, others see it differently,
According to this group, the 1999 constitution provides that ” A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, there being more than two candidates for the election,he has the highest number of votes cast at the election, and must have nothing less than one – quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two – thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory ( FCT),Abuja “
The latter appears to be ground on which INEC declared Tinubu as President -elect and paved the way for his inauguration on May 29.
It also seems to be the basis upon which the latest court decision was made.
