The All Progressives Congress and its Gwagwalada Area Council chairmanship candidate, Yahaya Usman, have officially filed a petition challenging the results of the February 21, 2026, election in Abuja.
Filed under reference FCT/ACEPT/EP/02/2026 and obtained by our correspondent on Thursday, March 19, the petition disputes the declaration of Mohammed Kasim of the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
INEC had announced Kasim as the victor with 22,165 votes, while Usman received 17,788 votes.
The APC and Usman are seeking the annulment of the election on three primary grounds: alleged violations of the Electoral Act 2026, claims of corrupt practices, and the assertion that the declared winner did not secure a majority of lawful votes.
According to the petition, the election, which spanned 10 wards and 338 polling units in Gwagwalada Area Council, was plagued by widespread irregularities, particularly involving electoral officials.
The petitioners claimed that results in at least six polling units were tampered with to align figures with the number of accredited voters and to conceal incidents of over-voting. The affected units were located in Kutunku, Ibwa, Tungan Maje, and Ikwa wards.
The petition reads: “That the result of 6 polling units in 4 wards i.e., Kutunku (code: 02); Ibwa (code: 04); Tunga Maje (code: 07); and Ikwa (code:09), issued to the Petitioners by the 1st Respondent on request as entered in Forms EC8A series by the presiding officers of the 1st Respondent were altered, changed, results suppressed or inflated to avoid over-voting in breach of the Electoral Act, 2026 and the Electoral Regulations and Electoral Guideline.
“That there were also incidences of cancellations on the face of results in Forms EC8A that were glaringly done in 6 polling units during the Gwagwalada Area Council Chairmanship Election.”
The petition further alleged that APC votes were deliberately suppressed during the collation process in two polling units.
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It also identified 102 polling units with substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act and eight units where officials allegedly engaged in result manipulation, including erasures, cancellations, and rewriting of figures.
“That aside the 102 Polling Units where substantial non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2026 occurred in the 2026 Gwagwalada Chairmanship Election held on the 21st of February, 2026, there are also 8 polling units where electoral officials of the 3rd Respondent engaged in corrupt practices and irregularities by mutilating, erasing, cancelling and re-rewriting the figures in the results sheet with the aim of altering, changing to avoid the consequences of over-voting, as well as suppressing results and inflation of votes,” the petition added.
The petitioners also raised concerns about the wrongful accreditation of voters in 71 polling units across six wards, accusing officials of failing to properly record voters’ details in the register.
They argued that despite these irregularities, INEC proceeded to collate the disputed votes when declaring the PDP candidate the winner.
Additionally, the petition cited 31 polling units where over-voting occurred, noting that votes exceeding the number of accredited voters, 1,289 for APC and 3,236 for PDP, should be considered invalid.
After adjusting for the disputed votes, the petitioners calculated that APC would have 16,499 valid votes, while PDP would have 18,929, yielding a margin of 2,430 votes.
They argued that this margin falls short of the 21,289 registered voters in the affected units, justifying annulment and potentially a rerun.
The APC and Usman are urging the election tribunal to nullify the results and determine the rightful winner in accordance with the law.