From Our Correspondent
The Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja, ruled that Gov. Abba Yusuf of Kano State was not a valid candidate in the gubernatorial election held in the state on March 18.
The Justice M. U. Adumeh-led three-member panel of justices at the appellate court, therefore, nullified his election victory, on Friday.
In a unanimous decision, the Judges held that the NNPP’s evidence established that Yusuf was its member, at the time of the election.
According to the court, Yusuf, under section 177(c) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, was not qualified to contest the governorship election.
This is because the NNPP did not validly sponsor him.
“A person must be member of a political party, which must sponsored for an election.
“Sponsorship without membership is like putting something on nothing,” the court held in its lead judgement.
Consequently, the appellate court upheld the earlier judgement of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which nullified Yusuf’s election.
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Recall that the tribunal had in a virtual judgement delivered on Sept. 20, sacked Yusuf from office.
It declared Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna of APC, as the valid winner of the governorship poll held on March 18.
The tribunal, led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay, held that some ballot papers that were relied upon to declare Yusuf winner of the gubernatorial election, were neither signed nor stamped by the election umpire (INEC).
It declared 165,663 votes, credited to the NNPP candidate as invalid.
Following the deduction of invalid votes, Yusuf, earlier declared winner of the poll with a total of 1,019,602 votes, had his tally reduced to 853,939 votes.
With the development, his closest rival and APC candidate, Ganuwa, emerged as the winner of the election with 890,705 votes.
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