Today, November 17, the Court of Appeal in Abuja upheld the ruling of the Kano State poll Petition Tribunal, which had removed Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf from office and proclaimed APC candidate Nasiru Ganuwa the victor of the March 8 poll.

In its ruling on September 20, 2023, the state tribunal declared INEC’s announcement of Abba Yusuf of the NNPP the election’s victor. Because Yusuf’s 165,663 votes were not signed or stamped by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the lower court ruled that they were illegitimate. After that, Yusuf’s votes dropped to 853,939 while those of his All Progressives Congress (APC) opponent, Nasir Ganuwa, stayed at 890,705 votes.

 

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, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, lead for Yusuf, asked that the judgement of the tribunal be set aside. Kicking against the ruling on ballot papers, the senior lawyer said that was the first time in the history that a tribunal would annul an election over non-signing of the back of ballot papers.

He had said the tribunal erred, arguing further that, that was the first time that a political party would file a matter without joining its candidate as a party in the petition and the candidate would declared winner of the polls.

 

But Akin Olujimi SAN, counsel for APC, countered him saying the Appeal Court stated emphatically that the non-signing of ballots amounted to electoral malpractice.

The Appeal held that Yusuf was not even qualified to run fpr governor in the first place as he Wasn’t a registered member of the NNPP.