The Concerned Federal Capital Territory Voters and Residents has faulted the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to extend the tenure of the elected chairmen and councillors in the six Area Councils by one year. 

To this end, the group gave the electoral body seven day ultimatum to reverse the decision. 

At a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, leader of the group, Chuks Akamadu insisted that neither the electoral commission nor the Electoral Act 2022 has the power to extend the three-year mandate of the serving FCT area council chairmen and counselors.  

He said their tenure ought to have expired in February 2025 as against the 2026 extension by the electoral umpire. 

While saying that INEC was being misled, Akamadu described the move as illegal, stressing that it is an invitation to a ‘floodgate of needless and rather more importantly, avoidable litigations’. 

“For the avoidance of doubt, we do not quarrel with the clear and unambiguous provision of the 2022 Electoral Act which states, in Section 108 (1) that: 

“An Area Council shall stand dissolved at the expiration of 4 years commencing from the date – When the Chairman took the oath of office; or When the legislative arm of the council was inaugurated whichever is earlier.’

“On the contrary, our considered position is that this law can only become operative after the expiration of the tenure of the current chairmen and councillors who were duly elected on the basis of the defunct 2010 statute. For a day to be added to their 3-year mandate, it is the same electorate that solely possess the competence and who are invested with the authority to do so, that can validly renew a mandate,” the legal practitioner said. 

At a meeting convened to provide clarity on the tenure of the six area council chairmen and 62 councillors, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, had clarified that the council chairmen and councillors in the Federal Capital Territory would remain in office till 2026.