A group, the coalition of North Central Youth Vanguard, Wednesday, expressed dissatisfaction over a ruling delivered by the FCT Election Petitions Tribunal, rescinding the election of the Abuja Municipal Area Council chairman, Christopher Maikalangu.
The coalition made its position known in a press briefing in Abuja.
The leader of the Vanguard, David Adekule, said the group viewed the ruling as a miscarriage of justice, saying it is unsatisfying, unacceptable and will be appealed until justice is dispensed.
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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 spelt out the function of the judiciary to be interpreters of the law. It’s 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, the tribunal ruled that Mr. 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.
The three-man election tribunal had on Friday, August 5, declared that contrary to the earlier result announced by Independent National Election Commission (INEC) that declared the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s candidate, Christopher Maikalangu, the winner of the February 12th, 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 during the polls.
With this, the APC candidate will now have 21,000 votes from the earlier 13,249 thereby defeating the incumbent chairman, who polled 19, 302 votes.
