Political atmosphere in Kano is tensed with the Appeal Court’s announcement of Monday, November’s 6, 2023 as the date for hearing the appeal filed by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, challenging his victory nullification by the tribunal.
The suit with case no: CA/KN/EP/GOV/KAN/34/2023 was reported to have parties including Governor Yusuf and his party, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as Appealant while the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) as dependent in the suite.
A three-member panel of tribunal judges sacked Yusuf on September 20, 2023, by declaring 165,663 of his votes invalid for not being certified by INEC.
INEC had declared Mr Yusuf winner of the March 18, 2023 election after he secured 1,019,602 votes against his opponent Nasiru Gawuna who secured 890,705 votes.
However, after the tribunal deducted the 165,663 votes from Mr Yusuf’s tally, his votes were reduced to 853, 939, which were over 30,000 votes less than the 890,705 votes polled by Mr Gawuna.
Consequently, the court declared the APC candidate winner of the governorship election and ordered the INEC to withdraw Mr Yusuf’s certificate of return and give Gawuna a new one.
But Mr Yusuf and his party the NNPP as well as INEC have since appealed the tribunal’s judgement.
