Ireti Kingibe: Why Obi defeated Tinubu, Atiku in FCT

Ireti Kingibe, senator-elect, says Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), won in the federal capital territory (FCT) because it’s difficult to rig in the city.

Obi defeated other candidates to win the FCT in the presidential election of February 25.

In an interview with Arise TV on Friday, Kingibe said the LP worked hard to ensure that Obi got over 25 percent of votes in the FCT.

Kingibe said despite her electoral victory, she would have secured more votes were it not for a few irregularities.

“FCT is unique in that 75 percent of the electorate are you and I. Even the days of big card readers and even the days when we were using paper voter cards, FCT has always been a very difficult place to rig at the polling units,” she said.

“Now, even in these elections, there were so many irregularities, a lot of places where I could also come and say ‘Yes, I won and I won by a huge margin’ but there were so many places where there was irregularities and rigging. I think my votes would have been a lot more but at the end of the day you can only do those things at the collation centre.

“The results at the polling unit are still there but we had such a huge support that there’s no need squabbling over a few votes so most people do know that the FCT is different. You cannot influence the electorate, you cannot force them, you cannot shoot them, the embassies are there, the observers, most of them are there and that’s the truth of the matter.”

Kingibe said the constitution was not obeyed in the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as president-elect.

“Its always been understood that every presidential candidate must win 25% in the FCT, it is in the constitution, its always been understood,” she said.

“Now, if things are being said that you need to brush aside that constitutional requirement, well, that’s news to us because we worked hard to make sure that the Labour Party president got at least that 25 percent or more because we knew we had to have it right.”

Obi has filed a petition at the presidential election tribunal challenging Tinubu’s victory.

Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had 6,984,520, and Obi polled 6,101,533.

In the petition, Obi argued that the president-elect “was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the time of the election”.