A former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Dr Olisa Agbakoba has said that a candidate must meet with the requirement of getting at least 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory before he/she can emerge President.
Agbakoba has called on the Nigerian Judiciary, in particular, the Election Tribunal to make decisions on such matter within seven days of petition.
Agbakoba revealed this while speaking on Arise TV on Wednesday monitored by Truth Live News.
He said, “As far as I am concerned, you must also win 25% in FCT, but it’s not for me to say. The tribunal can answer this question quite easily in 1 hour. It’s not a difficult question.”
Recall that there have been controversies in interpreting Section 133 (1) (b) of the Nigerian Constitution, which said a candidate can only be declared president if “he has not 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, Abuja.”
The Senior Advocate insisted that the Constitution separated FCT entirely in the instance under discussion.
The veteran in the Law profession has said that what has to be done to quench the stirred atmosphere of politics in Nigeria is that the Election Tribunal should do the right thing.
“The other day, the minister of information was accusing Mr. Peter Obi of treason… and all kinds of things were going around. There are a lot of things wanting to destabilise Nigeria—the DSS is shouting that there are people all over the place doing things. The simple problem is just to resolve the election petitions.”