Monday, October 6, 2023 has been fixed by the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja to hear the appeal filed by Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf against the nullification of his election.
Recall that Yusuf had appealed against the Kano Election Petition Tribunal’s nullification of his election and its declaration of All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna as the elected governor.
On September 20, 2023, Yusuf was dismissed by a three-judge bench headed by Justice Oluyemi Akintan Osadebay, who ruled that 165,663 of Yusuf’s votes were invalid because “they were not signed or stamped by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).”
After the tribunal deducted the votes from Yusuf’s tally, the votes of the Kano governor were reduced to 853,939, 30,000 votes less than the 890,705 votes polled by Gawuna.
Consequently, the court declared Gawuna, the APC candidate, as the winner of the governorship election and ordered the INEC to withdraw Yusuf’s certificate.
In his reaction to the ruling, Governor Yusuf had described the tribunal’s verdict as “unfair” and “a miscarriage of justice”.
Ada Peter
