The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has today 19th of September, 2022 in Abuja, completely disowned the result tendered by the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the defunct FCT election Petitions Tribunal. The case was instituted against Hon. Christopher Zakka Maikalangu’s victory as the standard winner of the Abuja Municipal Area Council election which the electoral umpire declared in February 2022.
Making this known at the maiden hearing of the Elections Appeal Tribunal in response to the trial Judge’s question, on the authenticity and validation of the election result in reference, to the complicity created by opposing result sheets produced by the APC versus the one tendered by INEC at the lower tribunal, INEC Counsel, Barrister Umar Alhassan, represented by Barrister Hassan Aminu, the electoral body insisted that the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) candidate, who polled 19,302 votes defeated Murtala Karshi of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who scored a distant 13,240 votes.
In the course of the examination, INEC reaffirmed that the document it tendered at the lower tribunal is the true reflection of what transpired on February 12, 2022 in the FCT Area Councils’ election that produced the PDP candidate as the authentic winner of the election.
Speaking before the three-man Appeal Panel led by its Chairman, Justice Suleiman Belgore, INEC Counsel informed Tribunal members that the result presented by their lawyers at the lower tribunal confirming Zakka’s election subsists.
It would be recalled that in a brazen dislocation of justice, the lower Tribunal had in early August, annulled PDP’s victory by allocating thousands of votes to the APC from APC’s 13, 242 votes to about 21,000 leaving Maikalangu with the 19,302 votes earlier declared.
