Supreme Court Reserves Judgment in Kano Governorship Election Tussle

The Supreme Court on Thursday, December 21, 2023 after six hours of fierce legal fireworks by Counsels, reserved judgment in the Kano State Governorship Election.

The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) as well as Governor Kabir Yusuf and the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its governorship candidate in the March 2023 election, Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna are at daggers drawn for the coveted seat of Kano State.

Counsel to Governor Kabir, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, urged the apex court to set aside the decisions of the Tribunal and Court of Appeal by pleading with the five-man panel headed by Justice John Inyang Okoro to determine whether or not, the guidelines of INEC should be a basis for nullifying the election victory of a candidate who won by a margin of over 100,000.

Olanipekun further argued that this was the first time in the annals of electoral jurisprudence where an election was nullified on the grounds that ballot papers were not signed or stamped at the back, stressing that INEC guidelines does not envisage that the courts would nullify an election on the basis of INEC purported failure to stamp ballot papers on the back.

He said that his client’s membership of the NNPP is a pre-election matter and that the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to entertain a pre-election matter.

In his words; “The judgment of the lower courts is very unfair to the appellant and we urge your lordships to upturn it.

“Nobody raised the legality or illegality of the ballots. They tendered the ballot from the bar. Nobody spoke to it. The ballot papers were legal because they were issued by INEC officials,’’ he said.

In his counter argument, Counsel to the APC, Chief Akin Olujimi said that the Electoral Act mandates INEC presiding officers to sign the back of ballot papers after the conclusion of the election to make them legal and lawful, adding that the findings of the Tribunal indicated that the ballot papers were not signed at the back and not dated and therefore proceeded to cancel election where the ballots were used.

Olujimi also said that electoral irregularities were manifest on the disputed ballot papers.

On the issue of party membership, Olujinmi pointedly said that the NNPP membership register did not contain the name of Abba Yusuf.

However, Counsel to INEC, Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud, SAN, supported the arguments of the Counsel of NNPP, Mr. Olanipekun, saying that the position of the lower courts were flawed.

Mahmoud particularly said that the testimony of a subpoenaed witness (PW32) which the Tribunal relied upon to sack Abba Yusuf were not front loaded along with the petition at the Tribunal contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act.

According to Mahmood; “They were our ballot papers issued by INEC. It was not the duty of a voter to check if ballot papers were signed or not but that of the party agents. The electoral Commission’s contention is that the Tribunal went far beyond its powers in vetting each of the ballot papers in their chambers and not in open court’’.

The Counsel to INEC contended that membership of a political party is clearly an internal affairs of a political party stressing that Abba Yusuf’s name was forwarded to the Commission prior to the election while his party membership card was tendered in evidence at the Tribunal.

Similarly, Counsel for the NNPP, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, said the ballot papers were actually cast at the polling units but the APC legal team did not specify the polling units affected at the Tribunal in line with rules of court, adding that ballot papers not signed ought not to affect the validity of an election.

He said; “My submission is that election is the decision of the people. Tribunal was wrong to recount the ballots in its chambers’’.

Awomolo added that not a single witness told the Tribunal that ballot papers were not stamped and therefore urged the Supreme Court to restore the 165,165 cancelled votes of Abba Yusuf and affirm his election.

After taking arguments of parties, Justice Okoro reserved judgment on Governor Yusuf’s appeal.