November 17, (THEWILL) – The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has declared Nasiru Gawuna of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the duly elected governor of Kano State.
A three-member panel of Justices of the Court led by M. U. Adumeh, in a unanimous judgement on Friday, upheld the judgment of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which on September 20, sacked Governor Abba Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) as the winner of the March 18 governorship election in the State.
The court held that the NNPP breached the constitution by sponsoring Yusuf, who was not a member of the party.
According to Justice Adumeh, sufficient evidence before the court established that Governor Yusuf was not a member of the NNPP at the time of the election and therefore not a valid candidate in the March 18 gubernatorial election in Kano State.
The court held that Yusuf, under section 177(c) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, was not qualified to contest the governorship election since he was not validly sponsored by the NNPP.
“A person must be a member of a political party before he can be sponsored for an election. Sponsorship without membership is like putting something on nothing,” Justice M. U. Adumeh ruled.
Governor Yusuf had approached the appellate court, challenging the judgement of the Tribunal.
He argued that the deduction of over 165,000 of his votes over non-signing of the back of ballot papers was unknown to law.
His counsel, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), further contended that it was the first time a political party would file a matter without joining its candidate as a party in the petition and the candidate would be declared winner of the polls.
Yusuf had prayed the appellate court to set aside the judgment of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which nullified his victory and declared Gawuna of the APC the winner of the 2023 governorship election held in the State.
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