Governor Abba Kabiru Yusuf of Kano has approached the Court of Appeal, Kano Division, to set aside the decision of the Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which invalidated his victory at the March 18th election.
Besides the invalidation of his election victory, the Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay led three-man tribunal, in a judgement delivered on September 20, 2023, declared the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, as the lawful winner of the Governorship poll and should be returned elected.
The tribunal equally ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return earlier issued to Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and issue a fresh certificate of return to Gawuna of the APC.
Apparently dissatisfied with the verdict of the lower court, Yusuf, through his attorney, Wole Olanipekun and Co., appealed the judgment, asking the appellate court to dismiss and or, strike out the petition of the APC with case file EPT/KN/GOV/01/2023.
Yusuf, who stands as sole appellant before the court of appeal, joined the All Progressives Congress (APC), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents, respectively.
The appeal was filed on October 2, 2023, and served all the parties as indicated in the processes cited by The Guardian, challenging the tribunal’s judgment on 43 major grounds and three reliefs.
The appellant faulted the lower court decision where it invalidated 165,616 votes and deducted the same from not being mindful that similar ballots were counted for the petitioner.
In another case, Yusuf insisted the tribunal erred in law and reached a perverse decision to direct INEC to withdraw the certificate of return from him while neglecting the principle of margin of lead between him and the petitioner.
According to the appellant, the total number of PVC collected, according to the tribunal, especially at the affected PUs including those at P44 to P79, and P81 to P93 amounted to 268,565. He argued that with the compilation of votes between the two leading parties after deduction and final figures, which left with a margin lead of 36,719 votes, the election ought to have been declared inconclusive.
The tribunal had upturned the victory of Yusuf, having upheld the second relief of the petitioner’s plea to declare its candidate winner on the basis that over 200,000 ballots cast for the NNPP candidate were invalid since the ballots were not duly signed, stamped, and dated.
The appellant is fronting his appeal with five counsels including two Senior Advocates, against an array of 20 attorneys including five SANs paraded before the election petition tribunal which lasted less than 180 days and eventually went in favor of the petitioner.
The Guardian
