By Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Abba Kabir Yusuf, filed an appeal at the apex court to dispute the March 24 supplementary election held in some electoral wards in Kano State.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the March 9 election in Kano State inconclusive, which led to the supplementary election held on March 23.
On March 24, 2019, the INEC had declared Mr Ganduje the winner, he scored 1,033,695 votes to defeat his closest rival Mr Yusuf, who got 1,024,713 votes.
Dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, the candidate of the PDO and his party challenged the outcome at the Kano election petition Tribunal.
In a unanimous judgement read by justice Sylvester Ngwuta on Monday, the court held at the Challenger , Abba Yusuf of the people’s Democratic party (PDP) did not show that the court of Appeal and the Election Tribunal were wrong in their earlier rulings.
The court of appeal five- member panel, led by justice Tijani Abubakar in a unanimous judgement, dismissed the entire Petition of the PDP’s candidate and it’s party for lacking in merit
Lawyers’ argument
Appearing before the apex court on Tuesday, the lawyer to Mr Yusuf of the PDP, Adegboyega Awomolo, asked the court to allow the appeal and grant all the appellant’s prayers.
Mr Awomolo noted that the returning officer cancelled results in 207 polling units, declared the election inconclusive and rescheduled another election for March 23, 2019.
Mr Awolowo said the cancellation made by the state returning officer in 207 polling units after announcing the entire results in the state was outside his powers.
“Therefore, the result of the second rescheduled election of March 23 is null and void,” he said.
“The only lawful votes at the Kano State governorship election were those announced by the returning officer on March 11.
“In conclusion, I urge your lordship to allow this appeal on the grounds that the appellant scored the highest votes at the election of March 9, 20,19 and satisfied section 179 (2) a and b.”
Opposing arguments
But the lawyer representing INEC, Ahmed Raji, urged the court to summarily dismiss the appeal.
Mr Raji said it was not correct that the returning officer cancelled votes. He said the evidence laid did not prove any cancellation.
Also, the legal team said they had addressed all the issues raised in their brief of argument.
Mr Ganduje’s lawyers, including Alex Iziyon, said allowing the appeal would mean “sanctioning election violence, giving credit to somebody who has clearly violated the law and admitted the same”.
They urged the apex court to dismiss the appeal with a substantial cost of N5 million in their favour.
