FCT Decides 2022: How APC Won Abaji Area Council with No Candidate Declared as Winner, INEC Reveals

• The All Progressives Congress (APC) has recorded a controversial but valid victory in the chairmanship election in Abaji Area Council, Abuja
• INEC declared the ruling party the winner of the poll but said no candidate can be declared winner due to a legal tussle
• The electoral body has disclosed the next step to take as two aspirants, Muhammad Loko and Umar Abdullahi, are fighting over the ticket

Abaji, Abuja - The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday, February 13, declared the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the chairmanship election in Abaji Area Council of Abuja.

However, the electoral body did not declare any candidate the winner of the poll.

Premium Times reported that INEC blamed the development on a legal tussle over who the authentic candidate of the APC is.

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Abaji area council: Case is still in court - INEC

The INEC Returning Officer for Abaji Area Council, Gabriel Mordi, said it will not be legitimate to declare any of the APC aspirants as the winner of the election.

He said:

“We cannot declare a candidate winner in Abaji because the winning party does not have a candidate here, the case is still in court."

According to Mordi, a winner will be announced after the Supreme Court decision in the coming weeks.

Legit.ng gathers that an APC aspirant, Muhammad Loko, had been declared the winner of the April 23, 2021, chairmanship primary in Abaji.

However, his name was controversially substituted by the APC with that of Umar Abdullahi who was later recognised by INEC as the party’s flag bearer

Dissatisfied with this, Loko approached an FCT High Court in Gudu district. The court on November 16, 2021, ruled in his favour and sacked Abdullahi.

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The latter appealed the ruling. However, the appeal court in January affirmed Loko as the APC chairmanship candidate.

Abdullahi appealed to the Supreme Court whose ruling on the matter is now being awaited.

3-3: How APC, PDP stood after the FCT elections

In the election in Abaji, the APC scored 7,280 votes to defeat Yahaya Garba of the PDP, who polled 4,063 votes.

A total of 11,522 voters were accredited in the local government for the poll. Out of these, 11,390 were counted as valid votes while 107 were rejected votes.

With the Abaji victory, the APC won the chairmanship elections in three area councils while the PDP also won in three.

Imo North bye-election: INEC declares APC winner, returns no candidate

Legit.ng recalls that the situation in Abaji had happened in 2020 when INEC declared the APC as the winner of the bye-election in the Imo North senatorial district but named no candidate as the winner

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Both Ifeanyi Araraume and Chukwuma Francis Ibezim were laying claims to the APC ticket in the senatorial district, a tussle that led to several court cases.

From the declaration of INEC's returning officer, Hakeem Adikum, the APC won the election by polling 36, 811 votes, while Emmanuel Okewulonu of the PDP came behind by scoring 31, 903 votes.

Source: Legit.ng