The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has sacked Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State of the ALL Nigerian Peoples Party, NNPP while declared the All progressive Congress, APC, party as winner of the election. In its ruling the panel upheld the verdict of the tribunal led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan Osadebay which sacked Yusuf on September 20, 2023.
Accordingly, the tribunal court had subtracted about 165,663 votes out of the NNPP votes and declared the said votes as invalid citing that they were not signed by the INEC before it was given to the electorates to cast their votes.
Consequently, the NNPP votes were then reduced to 853,939 while those of Nasir Ganuwa, his All Progressives Congress (APC) counterpart, remained at 890,705.
Yusuf had rejected the tribunal verdict, which he described as “unfair” and “a miscarriage of justice”, and headed to the appeal court.
At the court, the counsel to Governor Yusup, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, lead for Yusuf, demanded that the judgment of the tribunal be set aside.
The senior lawyer argued that it was the first time in the Nigerian history that a tribunal would annul an election over non-signing of the back of ballot papers that was duly issued by the electoral umpire.
Olanipekun added, that the tribunal erred, arguing further that, that was the first time in a political history where a party would file a matter without joining its candidate as a party in the petition and the candidate would declare winner of the polls.
However, counsel for APC, Akin Olujimi SAN, countered him saying the Appeal Court stated emphatically that the non-signing of ballots amounted to electoral malpractice.
