Supreme Court Upturns Kano Gov's Sack Verdict

In a landmark verdict on Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed the Appeal Court ruling which declared candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Nasiru Ganuwa, as governor of Kano state. 

In a unanimous ruling, the court also restored New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP's candidate, Abba Yusuf, as the duly elected governor of the state. 

While delivering the lead judgement, Justice Inyang Okoro averred that both the Election Petition Tribunal and the Appeal Court erred in deducting valid votes that were credited to governor Yusuf by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

He ruled that 165,663 votes deducted from Yusuf and the NNPP on the premise that the ballot papers were not signed, stamped or dated, were indeed valid.

Accordingly, the court ruled that contrary to the position of the lower courts, a total of 146, 292 of the ballot papers were confirmed to have been signed and stamped. The only error is that they did not contain any date.

The judge added that by section 63(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, ballot papers which bore the official mark and was duly issued by INEC, were not totally invalid.

The court concluded that there was no evidence that governor Yusuf influenced the non-signing of the ballot papers. 

While faulting the lower courts in their decisions to nullify Yusuf's election on the supposition that he was not a member of the NNPP, the court insisted that the issue of sponsorship of candidate in an election was within the domestic affairs of a political party.