- Tinubu Congratulates Winners As APC Sweeps 5, PDP Wins 1 FCT Chairmanship Seat
- Atiku: Democracy Under Siege, Tinubu’s Chokehold Suffocating The Republic
- EFCC Nabs 20, Recovers N17m Meant For Vote Buying
- PDP Constitutes Legal Team For Looming Lawsuits, Blames Electoral Act For Voters’ Apathy
The outcome of Saturday’s elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Kano, and Rivers States has sparked a mixture of commendations and criticisms, reflecting the diverse political sentiments across the country.
While President Bola Tinubu has hailed the peaceful conduct of the polls and congratulated winners, urging them to serve with humility and patriotism, reactions from political stakeholders and observers have varied.
According to results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), APC won five chairmanship seats in the just-concluded 2026 area council election in the FCT, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won only one seat. The African Democratic Congress however, did not win any seats.
Elections were conducted in Abaji, Kwali, Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Bwari, Gwagwalada, and Kuje.
In Abaji, INEC declared Umar Abdullahi Abubakar of the APC as the winner of the chairmanship election.
Abubakar defeated his closest rivals, Sokodabo Bilyaminu of the PDP and Mohammed Ibrahim of the ADC, to secure Abaji’s top seat. He polled 15,536 votes, defeating the PDP with 4,547 votes and the ADC with 37 votes.
APC’s Christopher Maikalangu emerged victorious in the AMAC chairmanship election, defeating Peter Obi’s ally, Moses Paul, in a closely watched political contest.
The winner, Maikalangu, is believed to be the anointed candidate of Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the FCT.
It would be recalled that Zadna Dantani, chairmanship candidate of the PDP recently withdrew from the contest in favour of APC’s Maikalangu. Dantani disclosed that his decision followed Wike’s intervention.
AMAC’s collation officer, Andrew Abue, stated that Maikalangu, who is the incumbent AMAC chairman, was returned elected.
The APC candidate scored the highest number of votes cast, 40,295 out of the total number of valid votes of 62,861 in the election. The ADC, led by flagbearer social activist Moses Ogidi Paul, came second with 12,109 votes, while the PDP garnered 3,398 votes.
Paul is a notable ally of Nigerian presidential hopeful Peter Obi. According to Prof. Abue, there were 2,336 rejected votes, with a total of 62,861 valid votes and 65,197 votes cast overall. He added that AMAC has 837,338 registered voters, of whom 65,676 were accredited for the election.
INEC also declared APC’s Joshua Ishaku as the winner of the Bwari area council chairmanship election. The returning officer for the election, Prof. Mohammed Nurudeen, announced the results on Sunday, February 22, in Bwari, stating that Ishaku polled a total of 18,466 votes to secure victory.
According to Nurudeen, the candidate of the ADC polled 4,254 votes to place second, while the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) candidate came third with 3,515 votes.
The chairmanship election was conducted across 10 wards in the council: Igu, Shere, Dutse, Ushafa, Byazhin, Kuduru, Kubwa, Usuma, Bwari Central, and Kawu.
INEC declared Mohammed Kasim of the PDP as the winner of the Gwagwalada area council election.
The returning officer, Philip Akpen, said Kasim polled a total of 22,165 votes to defeat his closest opponent, Yahaya Shehu of the APC, who polled 17,788 votes. He also stated that Biko Umar of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) scored 1,687 to come in third place.
Danjuma Shekwolo Samuel of the APC won the Kuje area council chairmanship election with a margin of over 1,400 votes.
The returning officer, Prof. Nkiruka Odoh, announced Samuel as the winner of the election after collating the results at the INEC office in Kuje.
The APC candidate, Samuel, secured 17,269 votes to defeat his closest opponent, Zakwoyi Danlami of the PDP, who polled 15,824. Samuel, who won with a 1,445-vote margin, also won six of the 10 wards to defeat the PDP candidate. The APGA candidate came a distant third with 4,305 votes.
Reacting, Tinuu extended his congratulations to candidates who emerged victorious in Saturday’s elections across the FCT, Kano, and Rivers states.
In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, the President urged the winners to serve with humility, patriotism, and dedication, describing their mandate as a “sacred trust” from the people.
Tinubu also commended the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, for what he described as “remarkable achievements” in the territory, noting that these had translated into political dividends for the governing All Progressives Congress (APC). He congratulated the APC leadership at national, state, and local levels for the party’s success at the polls.
The President praised INEC, security agencies, and voters for ensuring the elections were peaceful and credible. He highlighted the courage and discipline of all contestants, stressing that democracy thrives on participation and competition.
According to Tinubu, the successful conduct of the elections further strengthens Nigeria’s democratic institutions. He called on INEC to continue improving its processes to deliver even more exemplary elections in the future.
In a stark contrast, former Vice President of Nigeria and chieftain of the ADC, Atiku Abubakar, raised a grave alarm over the disgracefully low voter turnout recorded in Saturday’s FCT Area Council elections.
Reacting to the exercise, the former Vice President described the turnout, which averaged below 20 per cent, with the Abuja Municipal Area Council recording a shocking 7.8 per cent as a damning verdict on the health of Nigeria’s democracy under the current administration.
According to Atiku, such abysmal civic participation in the nation’s capital- the symbolic heartbeat of the federation is not accidental.
It is the predictable outcome of a political environment poisoned by intolerance, intimidation, and the systematic weakening of opposition voices.
The Waziri Adamawa noted that the Bola Tinubu-led APC government has pursued a deliberate policy of shrinking democratic space, harassing dissenters, coercing defectors, and fostering a climate where alternative political viewpoints are treated as threats rather than contributions to national development.
“When citizens lose faith that their votes matter, democracy begins to die,” Atiku stated. “What we are witnessing is not mere voter apathy. It is a direct consequence of an administration that governs with a chokehold on pluralism. Democracy in Nigeria is being suffocated slowly, steadily, and dangerously.”
He warned that the steady erosion of participatory governance, if left unchecked, could inflict irreversible damage on the democratic fabric painstakingly built over decades.
“A democracy without vibrant opposition, without free political competition, and without public confidence is democracy in name only. If this chokehold is not released, history will record this era as the period when our hard-won freedoms were traded for fear and conformity.”
The former Vice President called on opposition parties and democratic forces across the country to urgently close ranks and forge a united front.
“This is no longer about party lines; it is about preserving the Republic. The time to stand together to rescue and rebuild Nigeria is now.”
Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has disclosed that its operatives arrested 20 suspects for sundry electoral offences, including alleged vote buying during Saturday’s area council elections held across the FCT.
In a statement posted on its X handle on Sunday, the ant-graft agency said operatives also recovered more than N17 million from some of the suspects.
According to the statement, the suspects were arrested for various electoral offences, including vote buying and vote selling.
“One of the suspects was arrested with a sum of N13,500,000 (Thirteen Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira) in a car parked beside a polling booth in the Kwali Local Government Area,” the statement reads.
“Two of the suspects were arrested in Abaji; nine in Gwagwalada; four in Kuje and the remaining four in Kwali.”
The EFCC added that the suspects would be charged to court upon conclusion of investigations.
In arelated development, the National Working Committee of the PDP has congratulated successful candidates of the PDP in the Area Council Elections which were held in Abuja on February 21, 2026.
This is even as the party disclosed the constitution of a legal team for the cases to arise from the election.
The party disclosed this in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Ini Ememobong.
“This victory, though less in number than we anticipated, is particularly gladdening because it is against the background of unprecedented intimidation, high-powered money politics and brazen executive brigandage. Reports and video evidence abound where armed security personnel were used to cart away result sheets in polling units, intimidate voters, and unduly influence the outcome of the elections.
“We specifically congratulate the Chairman-elect of Gwagwalada Area Council, Mohammed Kasim, and the Councillors who have been declared successful by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“We have set up a special Legal Team, headed by the National Legal Adviser, Shafi Bara’u,Esq, to attend to candidates who have genuine complaints arising from these elections and to assist with post-election litigations. They should immediately contact the National Legal Adviser for prompt action, as delay is fatal in election petition cases.
“The incredible voter apathy in these polls is a direct response to the anti-people Electoral Act 2026, where the people have completely lost faith in the electoral outcomes from elections conducted under this Act. These Local Council polls may just be a foreshadowing of the forthcoming general elections in 2027, if changes are not urgently made.
“There is time to correct the wrongdoing by the National Assembly and the President to save our democracy from collapse”.
