BREAKING: Kano State Gov. Abba Kabir Yusuf, Sacked | SEE GROUNDS OF JUDGEMENT

Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano state, has been sacked by an appellate court sitting in Abuja on Friday.

He was sacked in a unanimous judgement given by a three-member panel of justices, on the grounds that he was not qualified to contest the March 18, 2023 governorship election held in the state.

The court ruled that Yusuf’s candidacy was not validly sponsored by hs party, the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP, and as such, was not qualified to contest in line with section 177(c) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

“A person must be a member of a political party before he can be sponsored for an election.

“Sponsorship without membership is like putting something on nothing,” the court held in its lead judgement that was delivered by Justice M. U. Adumeh.

Consequently, the appellate court upheld the earlier judgement of the Kano state Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which nullified Governor Yusuf’s election.

It will be recalled that the tribunal had in a virtual judgement it delivered on September 20, sacked governor Yusuf of the NNPP, from office and declared Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna of the All Progressive Congress, APC, as the valid winner of the governorship poll held in the state on March 18.

The three-member panel tribunal, led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay, held that some ballot papers that were relied upon to declare Yusuf as the winner of the gubernatorial contest, were neither signed nor stamped by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

It proceeded to declare 165,663 of the votes that were credited to the NNPP candidate as invalid.

Following the deduction of the said invalid votes, Yusuf, who was initially declared winner of the governorship poll with a total of 1,019,602 votes, had his tally reduced to 853, 939 votes.

With the development, his closest rival and candidate of the APC, Nasiru Ganuwa, emerged as the winner of the election with 890,705 votes.

Dissatisfied with the judgement, Governor Yusuf approached the appellate court to set it aside, even as he accused the tribunal of misapplying the law.