On Sunday, February 13th, 2022, a Twitter user with the name Ahmed Shehu tweeted that PDP won all chairmanship & councillorship seats in the FCT council polls conducted by INEC.
In his tweet, he stated that “PDP wins all chairmanship & councilorship seats in the council polls conducted by INEC Yesterday . in FCT Abuja…. The tweet had generated 37 comments, 190 quotes and retweets, and 615 likes as of the time of publishing this report.
POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE CLAIM
Nigeria is gearing up for the 2023 general elections, hence the need to fact-check all information disseminated on elections and their outcome.
However, the tweet was shared by Ahmed Shehu whose profile revealed that he’s a Special Assistant to Adamawa State’s First lady, which makes it pertinent to verify this authenticity as devoid of misinformation or disinformation to political supporters.
CLAIM
N-VA extracted the claim, “PDP Won All Chairmanship and Councillor Seats at the 2022 FCT Polls” and went on to fact-check it.
VERIFICATION
On February 12, 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted elections in the six FCT area councils: Abaji, Abuja Municipal (AMAC), Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje, and Kwali, and for 62 council seats inwards across the FCT.
A total of 14 political parties participated in the election, but two of the parties – All Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), dominated the polls.
According to a news report released by Premium Times titled, “ANALYSIS: How FCT area council elections were won and lost” it was discovered that the results released by the electoral commission, INEC, contradict the claims of the Twitter user.
On February 12, residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, went to the polls to elect the chairpersons and councilors for the six area councils making up the territory. Over 1.3 million voters were registered to vote in the election across the 2,229 polling units in the nation’s capital. However, ahead of the election, INEC announced that the election would not be held in the newly-established 593 polling units because they had no registered voters. It deployed about 12,000 ad hoc staff for the election.
The FCT election was the first to be organized by INEC in the New Year. The FCT poll is unique because, unlike Nigeria’s 36 states, the territory has no governor but is run by a minister who is appointed by the president of the country. Also, unlike in the 36 states where state electoral commissions organize the council elections, the FCT council elections are statutorily conducted by INEC.
Premium Times reported that at the end of the exercise, two major parties won three councils apiece. While APC won in Gwagwalada, Kwali and Abaji, PDP won in AMAC, Bwari and Kuje.
CONCLUSION
The claims tweeted by Ahmed Shehu, that PDP won all seats for chairman and councilor in the 2022 FCT elections contradict the official results released by INEC. The results showed that the PDP and APC shared the seats, making the claims tweeted by Shehu FALSE.
