The Kano Division of the Court of Appeal has fixed Monday, November 6, 2023, for hearing of the appeal filed by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State, challenging the judgement of the State Election Petitions Tribunal, which sacked him as the state governor.
The appellate court, in a notice made available to journalists, showed that the case with number CA/KN/EP/GOV/KAN/34/2023 will be heard on Monday at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
Parties in the suit include Governor Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) as well as the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), its candidate, Nasir Gawuna, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
It would be recalled that the Tribunal had delivered judgement weeks ago in favour of the APC when it declared its candidate Gawuna as the rightful winner of the March 18, 2023 Kano State governorship election.
The Tribunal nullified the election of Governor Yusuf by declaring 165,663 of his votes invalid, saying the ballot papers were not signed or stamped by INEC.
Recall that INEC had declared Yusuf winner of the March 18 election after he secured 1,019,602 votes against his opponent Gawuna, who secured 890,705 votes.
However, after the Tribunal deducted the 165,663 votes from Yusuf’s votes, his votes were reduced to 853,939, which were over 30,000 votes less than the 890,705 votes polled by Gawuna.
Consequently, the Tribunal declared the APC candidate winner of the governorship election and ordered INEC to withdraw Yusuf’s certificate of return and issue same to Gawuna of APC
Dissatisfied with the judgment, Governor Yusuf and his party, the NNPP as well as the INEC approached the Appeal Court to challenge the judgement of the Tribunal.