Court Upholds Kano Governor’s Removal
The Election Petition Tribunal’s decision to remove Kano State Governor Abba Yusuf from office was upheld by the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
The Appeal Court affirmed the tribunal’s decision in its verdict on Friday, finding that Abba Yusuf’s fielding violated the electoral law because he was ineligible to run in that particular election.
The Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal dismissed Yusuf on September 20 and declared Nasiru Gawuna, the APC candidate, winner of the March 18 election. The ruling was rendered nearly two months later.
Following the poll in March, Yusuf, who ran on the platform of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), was proclaimed the election’s victor by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The contested ballots were not signed or stamped, so the tribunal ruled them to be illegitimate, deducting 165,663 votes from Yusuf’s total.
Following INEC’s awarding of the certificate of return to the NNPP candidate, the APC candidate had to admit loss to Yusuf.
Gawuna said in a two-minute audio statement on March 29 that, “as a good Muslim,” he had to accept the election’s result, whether it favored him or not.
He continued by saying that even though his campaign team had asked INEC to examine the election results, the commission had determined that Yusuf had won.
