The Supreme Court has upheld the victory of Governor Abba Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the March 18th gubernatorial election in Kano State.
A five-member panel of the apex court, led by Justice John Okoro, set aside the judgement of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, and the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which sacked Governor Yusuf and declared Nasiru Gawuna of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as validly elected governor of Kano.
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The Court of Appeal had affirmed the verdict of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal that sacked Governor Yusuf.
According to the appellate court, Governor Yusuf was not a member of the NNPP when he contested the election.
Earlier, a three-member panel of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, led by Justice O. Osadebay, sacked Governor Yusuf on the basis of illegal votes of 165,663, which were not signed, streamed, and dated.
Displeased with the verdicts, Governor Yusuf, the NNPP, and INEC approached the Supreme Court, seeking to dismiss the earlier judgments and reaffirm Yusuf as the duly elected governor.
Subsequently, APC equally filed a cross-appeal challenging the judgment of the Abuja Court of Appeal for failing to disqualify Abba Yusuf from contesting the March 18 election over an alleged certificate forgery.
In its judgment on Friday, the apex court held that the tribunal was wrong in deducting 165,616 votes accrued to the governor.
Also, the Supreme Court has affirmed the election of Bala Mohammed of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the Bauchi State governor.
The apex court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal and dismissed the appeal by Sadique Abubakar of the All Progressives Congress for lacking merit.
The appellate court had in November affirmed the victory of Governor Bala Mohammed in the March 18 governorship election.
This followed an earlier judgement by the tribunal upholding Mohammed’s victory.
In the Court of Appeal judgement, the panel of three justices was unanimous, awarding no cost as the court ruled that each party to the matter should bear their own costs.
The presiding judge, Justice Chidi Nwaoma Uwa, read the judgment in the order of the appellant’s plea before the appeal court.
On plea number one, the appellant had pleaded that the election be nullified because the forms and booklets used in the election were not properly filled out. The court ruled that the appellant failed to prove this allegation with the needed evidence.
The Court also affirmed Lawal Dauda as the validly elected Governor of Zamfara State.
Delivering the lead decision of the Supreme Court, Emmanuel Agim described the judgement of the lower Court of Appeal as perverse. He said the lower court’s decision lacked evidential foundation.
“The decision of the Court of Appeal has no evidential foundation.
“The judgement of the Court of Appeal delivered in November is set aside. The order setting aside the appellant’s election is set aside. And the election of the Appellant is upheld.” Mr. Agim rules.
Again, the apex court, on Friday, upheld the election of Sanwo-Olu as governor of Lagos State, consistent with the previous rulings from both the election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal in the state.
In a judgment delivered by a three-man panel—Justice Yargata Nimpa, Justice Samuel Bola, and Justice Paul Bassey—the Appeal Court affirmed the tribunal’s verdict on the re-election of Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Obafemi Hamzat as the Governor and Deputy Governor of Lagos State, respectively.
Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party had challenged the election of Sanwo-Olu.
The central issue in the election for the Labour Party candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, pertains to the qualification of Sanwo-Olu’s running mate.
He claimed that the deputy governor, Obafemi Hamzat, had renounced his citizenship as a Nigerian.
The court held that Sanwo-Olu’s deputy is a Nigerian by birth
The court added that renunciation of citizenship by birth must be registered by the Nigerian president, adding that the appellant did not provide evidence to that effect.
The court, therefore, dismissed the appeal by the Labour Party candidate for lacking merit.
On his part, Abdulazeez Adediran, commonly known as Jandor, from the PDP, argued that the name Sanwo-Olu submitted to INEC differed from the one on his WAEC certificate.
The apex court, while dismissing the appeal, described it as “academic.”.