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Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana, has challenged the legality of actions taken by the FCT Minister, Nyesson Wike, during the recent Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) elections, particularly the declaration of a public holiday and restriction of movement.
In a statement, Falana said his comments were grounded in the relevant provisions of Nigerian law, noting that only the President and the Minister of Interior have the authority to declare public holidays for the entire country or the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), while state governors are empowered to declare holidays within their respective states. He added that the FCT Minister does not possess such powers.
Falana questioned whether the President had even authorized the restriction of movement, noting that Nigerians did not observe the declared holiday last Friday. Courts in the FCT sat as usual, and security forces did not enforce the order, he said.
Read Also: FCT Polls: INEC Begins Upload Of Results On IReV Portal
He further raised concerns about the Minister’s own compliance, asking whether he registered to vote, adhered to the restriction order, or interfered in the election by interrogating electoral officers.
“The Minister’s defence that the President authorized him to order the restriction of movement is illegal, as the President lacks the power to give any order with respect to the conduct of any election in Nigeria,” Falana said.
He cited Section 160(1) of the Constitution, which stipulates that “the powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make its own rules or otherwise regulate its own procedure shall not be subject to the approval or control of the President.”
Falana challenged Minister Wike to cite any law that empowers him to declare a public holiday or restrict the movement of citizens during the AMAC election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC commenced the upload of election results for the FCT Council polls on its results viewing portal, IReV.
As at 9:04 pm The Eastern Updates gathered that the results from polling units in the six local councils of the FCT have started trickling in, a few hours after the Commission conducted the elections.
The results for the Kwali chairmanship election is 56.72% completed as of 9:04 pm on Saturday.
Read Also: APC Targets All Six Abuja Councils Amid Low Turnout, Wike Row
In the same way, the Gwagwalada Area Council chairmanship seat is 65.68 per cent uploaded.
The Commission, apart from results for the councillorship and the chairmanship posts in the FCT, is also uploading results of the Kano and Rivers State bye-elections on the IReV portal.
Residents of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory went to the polls on Saturday to elect chairmen and councillors across all six area councils in Abuja, in an election conducted under heavy security, a controversial movement restriction imposed by the FCT minister, and persistently low voter participation, patterns that have defined every council election in the capital since at least 2019 and that election observers said showed no clear sign of improvement.
Polls opened at 8:30 a.m. across 2,822 polling units in the six area councils of Abaji, Abuja Municipal Area Council, Bwari, Gwagwalada, Kuje, and Kwali. A total of 637 candidates from 17 political parties contested 68 positions, six chairmanship seats and 62 councillorships across 62 wards. The Independent National Electoral Commission deployed 4,345 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines to verify voters and accredit ballots, with results to be transmitted electronically to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal, the same framework used in all federal elections since 2022.
The exercise carried institutional weight beyond its local significance. Saturday’s polls were the first electoral test of INEC’s new leadership under Professor Joash Amupitan, appointed chairman by President Bola Tinubu in October 2025, and analysts said the commission’s performance in the capital would set expectations for its management of the far larger and more consequential 2027 general elections.
The stakes for the ruling All Progressives Congress were equally specific: having split the six councils evenly with the Peoples Democratic Party in 2022, the party entered the day with public declarations from senior officials that a clean sweep was both achievable and politically necessary as a statement of national strength ahead of 2027.
That ambition was prosecuted openly and, critics said, improperly. FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, a former governor of Rivers State appointed to administer Abuja by President Tinubu in 2023, declared publicly in the weeks before the election that he would support only those who backed the president’s agenda and would work against candidates who did not. At a campaign event in Abuja, Wike stated that he would block candidates who do not back the president, describing the council elections as a loyalty test for the ruling party and framing his own role in the outcome as a direct expression of that test. He went further, directly facilitating the withdrawal of at least one opposition candidate in favour of their APC opponent. Zadna Dantani, the PDP chairmanship candidate for AMAC, announced his withdrawal from the race on Thursday, citing Wike’s intervention in support of the APC incumbent Christopher Zakka Maikalangu.
