After an intense legal battle lasting six hours, the Supreme Court in Abuja, on Thursday, withheld its decision in the Kano State Governorship legal dispute. The focal point of the conflict involved the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), along with their respective governorship candidates, Kabir Yusuf and Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna.
During Thursday’s proceedings, Chief Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), urged the Supreme Court to overturn the decisions of both the Appeal Court and the Tribunal. Olanipekun specifically implored the five-member panel of the Apex Court, led by Justice John Inyang Okoro, to determine whether the guidelines set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could serve as grounds for invalidating the election victory of a candidate who secured a margin exceeding 100,000 votes.
The senior lawyer contended that it was unprecedented in electoral jurisprudence for an election to be annulled based on the absence of signatures or stamps on the back of ballot papers. He argued that INEC guidelines did not anticipate the courts nullifying an election due to INEC’s alleged failure to stamp the back of ballot papers.
The legal team for the governor asserted that their client’s affiliation with the NNPP was a pre-election matter, and the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to entertain it. Olanipekun expressed dissatisfaction with the judgments of the lower courts and urged the Supreme Court to overturn them.
In a counter-argument, Chief Akin Olujimi, counsel for the APC, maintained that the Electoral Act required INEC presiding officers to sign the back of ballot papers after the conclusion of the election for them to be considered legal. Olujimi stated that the tribunal’s findings revealed that the ballot papers were not signed or dated, leading to the cancellation of the election where these ballots were used.
Regarding party membership, Olujimi argued that the NNPP membership register did not list Abba Yusuf’s name. INEC’s counsel, Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud, supported Olanipekun’s arguments, asserting that the decisions of the lower courts were flawed.
After hearing arguments from all parties, Justice Okoro reserved judgment on the governor’s appeal. The tribunal had previously nullified Yusuf’s election in September, citing over 160,000 invalid votes due to missing signatures and stamps on the ballot papers. The APC had contested the election outcome, alleging electoral malpractice, and the Court of Appeal later dismissed the NNPP candidate’s appeal against the tribunal’s judgment, affirming the APC candidate as the winner of the governorship poll held on March 18.