By Godfrey AKON
Ahead of the February 12, 2022 Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Area Council Elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has disclosed that the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC, will be on the ballot but the issue of who the chairmanship candidate is, rests with the courts.
There are two claimants to the AMAC APC chairmanship seat; Suleiman Alhassan Gwagwa and Murtala Karshi.
The FCT High Court judge, Justice Babangida Hassan, on September 27, said that Gwagwa won the AMAC APC chairmanship primary election, but denied him the victory on the ground that he failed to approach the court within 14 days, as required by law.
Justice Hassan held that Gwagwa, who had filed his suit 16 days upon when the 3rd respondent, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, received a letter dated May 25, 2021 on May 28, 2021, which substituted his name with the 1st respondent, Murtala Karshi, failed to meet the 14 days required by law, within which to seek for redress.
However, the decision of the lower court was upturned by the Court of Appeal which ruled that Gwagwa was the lawful candidate of the party.
Not satisfied with the decision of the appellate court, Karshi approached the Supreme Court which has ruled that status quo remains until a ruling is made.
Following the development, chairman of the INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu told media executives at a stakeholders’ engagement las Friday that the commission was aware of the controversy but has no say in the matter.
“We are aware of the case. A name was forwarded to us by the party, Murtala Karshi, as required by law and the Court of Appeal upturned his nomination and now the matter is at the Supreme Court.
“As a law abiding commission, we await the final outcome. But as you know, it is political parties that stand for elections and not the candidates. So for now, the APC will be on the ballot but the commission has no recognized candidate,” Yakubu said.
He also informed the gathering that 593 out of the 2,822 polling units in FCT have no voters.
The figure, the INEC chairman said, represents about 21 per cent of the total number of polling units in FCT.
Yakubu explained that the reason was because voters failed to take advantage of the expansion of access to transfer to these new polling units.
“It is now 23 days to the area council elections in the Federal Capital Territory. Major activities have already been carried out, including the conduct of primaries and nomination of candidates by political parties.
“Only last week, the commission presented the register of voters to political parties while the PVCs for new registrants, requests for transfers and replacement of cards have been printed and delivered several weeks ago to our FCT office for collection by voters.
“In the next few weeks, the commission will intensify stakeholder engagements, the monitoring of campaigns by political parties and preparations for Election Day activities,” he added.
Speaking further on the conduct of the exercise, he said the commission will deploy, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, in the FCT elections, which is the second major election after the Anambra Governorship election held in November last year.
“The 68 constituencies in the FCT (six Chairmen and 62 Councillors) covering extensive urban and rural locations sharing border with five States in the North Central and North Western parts of the country is another opportunity to pilot the efficacy of the BVAS in a different geographical, geo-political and electoral context.
“The same technology will be deployed in all forthcoming bye-elections across the country. For all elections going forward, Polling Unit results will be uploaded in real-time to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal,” he said.
