Breaking: Tribunal sacks Abba Yusuf as Kano Governor

Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf

The Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has sacked Governor Abba Yusuf, declaring the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nasiru Gawuna, as the winner of the March 18 gubernatorial election in the state.

A three-member panel led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay delivered the judgement via Zoom on Wednesday, September 20, 2023.

The tribunal held that the margin of votes scored by the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) was invalid and was not conducted in compliance with the 2022 Electoral Act.

It held that the APC and Gawuna proved their case beyond reasonable doubt with substantial documentary evidence of over-voting.

Justice Akintan-Osadebay said: “165,663 invalid votes were wrongly credited to Kabir-Yusuf and the election was not conducted in compliance with the 2022 Electoral Act.

“Some of the ballot papers were neither signed nor stamped.”

The judge declared that after the deduction of valid votes scored by the candidates, Gawuna scored 890,000, while Yusuf polled 853,926 votes.

The tribunal chairman said Yusuf was not a member of the NNPP, 30 days before the party’s primary election as stipulated by the Electoral Act and was, therefore, not competent to contest.

Justice Akintan-Osadebay said: “The position of the law is that a candidate must be a bona fide member of a political party before he is allowed to contest an election.

“The petitioners have proved their case of over-voting, violence, vandalism of ballot papers, and disenfranchisement of voters.”

The judge, therefore, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw Yusuf’s Certificate of Return and issue the same to APC’s Gawuna as the duly elected governor of Kano State.

Yusuf-Gawuna and the APC headed to the tribunal to challenge INEC’s declaration of Yusuf as the winner of the March 18 governorship election in Kano State.

Respondents in the petition were INEC, Yusuf, and the NNPP.

INEC had earlier declared Yusuf the winner of the poll and credited him with 1,019,602 votes against Gawuna’s 890,705 votes.

Gawuna, however, prayed the tribunal to declare that NNPP had no candidate in the election, saying Yusuf was not on the register of party members submitted to INEC at the time of the election.

The Star