POLITICS

Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal Removes NNPP Candidate, Declares APC’s Nasir Gawuna as Governor

Published

8 months ago

September 23, 2023

Stella Charles Akupue

The Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, in a virtual session, delivered a landmark judgment on Wednesday, resulting in the removal of Abba Yusuf, the candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), from the position of the governor of Kano State.

In a decisive ruling, the tribunal directed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to revoke the certificate of return previously issued to Abba Yusuf.

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In its comprehensive decision, the tribunal affirmed Nasir Gawuna, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the duly elected governor of Kano.

The tribunal noted that the respondents, namely the NNPP and Abba Yusuf, provided crucial materials that constituted the basis for the evidence against them.

Tribunal’s Landmark Decision

In the court’s words, “The respondents themselves, in my opinion, were the ones who assisted this court in reaching the conclusion that this petition holds merit. Several factors contribute to this assessment. Firstly, the 1st respondent supplied Certified True Copies of all critical electoral documents, which served as the foundation for our determination that the 2nd respondent did not emerge as the victor in the governorship election in Kano state held on the 18th day of March.”

The court further emphasized that the respondents had made substantial admissions during the proceedings, as highlighted in the lead judgment. Additionally, the tribunal scrutinized the areas where disputes concerning invalid votes had arisen and found, in agreement with the lead review, that the petitioners had presented documentary evidence, initially supplied by the 1st respondent, demonstrating that an approximate 165,616 invalid votes had been incorrectly attributed to the score of the 2nd respondent.

The full text can be downloaded here for a detailed account of the tribunal’s judgment.

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