Abba Gida Gida Is Not Qualified to contest for Kano Gov election, APC tells court
By Abdulgafar Oladimeji
The All Progressive Congress, APC Kano chapter has filed its petition before Kano governorship Election Petition tribunal sitting at Miller road, challenging the victory of Kano governor elect, Abba Kabiru Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP.
Our correspondent reports that the petition was filled before the tribunal through its registry , on April 9th 2023.
The petitioner in its five volume petition informed the tribunal that the name of the state governor elect, Abba Kabiru Yusuf is not on the list of NNPP register that is in INEC’s custody.
APC stated in the petition that prior to the governorship election polls held on March 18th 2023, the NNPP candidate had failed to meet the requisite party membership conditions, therefore was allegedly not qualified to contest in the governorship elections on the platform of the NNPP.
Further the petitioner is requesting the court to squash the electoral mandate of Abba as he is fondly called, on the grounds of majority of lawful votes secured by the ruling APC at the polls.
Petitioner urged the court to admit the number of unlawful votes as void , and so take into account the deduction of the number of the unlawful votes , then reliant on the margin that would be left to declare the Kano governorship election as inconclusive.
The respondents, NNPP and its governorship candidate and INEC have 21 days to respond to the issues raised by the petitioners.
In a related development, the court has granted the APC an exparte motion to inspect the governorship election materials, as part of the build to pursue their case against NNPP before the court.
The legal adviser, APC Kano chapter, Abdul Adamu Fagge confirmed that the APC team have commenced the inspection of the affected electoral materials in all the 44 local governments.
According to him the inspection exercise is running smoothly with support from all the relevant parties that are involved in the matter.
He expressed the optimism that there are no anticipated hitches that would derail the exercise, , adding that they have been granted access to all materials so far, adding that the party would pursue the matter to legal conclusion.
