The Court of Appeal in Abuja has invalidated the election of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State.
In a previous ruling on September 20, 2023, a three-member panel of judges led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan Osadebay declared 165,663 votes for Yusuf as invalid. The court cited the absence of signatures or stamps from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the votes as the reason for their invalidation.
Consequently, the governor’s vote count, who ran under the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), was reduced to 853,939, while the votes for Nasir Ganuwa of the All Progressives Congress (APC) remained at 890,705.
The Kano State Governorship Election Petition Court nullified Yusuf’s election and declared the APC candidate as the true winner of the March 18 poll.
Governor Yusuf filed an appeal with the appellate court seeking to overturn the lower court’s verdict.
In its ruling, the Appeal Court upheld the decision of the tribunal, stating that the governor was ineligible to contest the election. The court found that Governor Yusuf was not a member of NNPP at the time the elections took place.
The unanimous judgment was delivered by Justice Moore Adumein and was met with celebratory reactions that reverberated through the court for several minutes.
