Urging the Presidential Election Petition Court to dismiss the petition by Atiku and his party, the commission said the PDP flag bearer failed to score, at least, one-quarter of the votes cast in at least two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and as such could not have been declared the winner.
As against the claim by the petitioners, INEC added that the election was conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 and was not marred by any corrupt practices.
The commission said the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu validly won the election.
At the just-concluded election, Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who scored 6,984,520 and Peter Obi of the Labour Party who got 6,101,533. Atiku and Tinubu won 12 states each while Obi won 11 states and the FCT.
Both Atiku and Obi are in court to challenge the declaration of Tinubu as winner by INEC but the electoral umpire told the court that the FCT is not accorded any special status in the constitution as being erroneously portrayed by some political parties and candidates who lost the election.
