The Supreme Court on Thursday, reserved judgment in an appeal filed by Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano state challenging the decision of the Court of Appeal, Abuja which sacked him from office.
The Court of Appeal had, on November 17 in a judgment of a three-member panel upheld the decision of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sacked Governor Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Nasiru Gawuna, winner of the March 18 poll.
The appellate court dismissed the appeal filed by Governor Yusuf based on his membership status in the NNPP.
However, the judgment elicited confusion when on Tuesday, November 21, the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the court judgment surfaced with contradictions as the CTC showed that all the issues were resolved in favour of Governor Yusuf.
After hearing the submissions of counsel in the matter and the processes filed had been adopted, the five-member panel of the apex court led by Justice Inyang John Okoro reserved judgment to a date that would be communicated to parties in the appeal.
There are a total of nine appeals filed in respect of the Kano governorship matter, which the court collapsed into one and reserved judgment.
At Thursday’s proceedings, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN asked the Supreme Court to set aside the decision of the Appeal Court and the Tribunal.
Olanipekun specifically pleaded with the five-man Apex Court panel headed by Justice John Inyang Okoro to determine whether or not, the guidelines of INEC would be a basis for nullifying the election victory of a candidate who won the election by a margin of over 100,000.
The senior lawyer argued that this is the first time in the annals of electoral jurisprudence that an election was nullified on grounds that ballot papers were not signed or stamped at the back.
He said INEC guidelines do not envisage that the courts would nullify an election based on INEC’s purported failure to stamp ballot papers on the back.
The governor’s legal team maintained that its client’s membership of the NNPP is a pre-election matter and that the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to entertain the matter
“The judgment of the lower courts is very unfair to the appellant and we urge your lordships to upturn it,” Olanipekun said.
“Nobody raised the legality or illegality of the ballots. They tendered the ballot from the bar. Nobody spoke to it,” Olanipekun replied.
“The ballot papers were legal because they were issued by INEC officials.
But in a counter-argument, the All Progressives Congress (APC) counsel, Chief Akin Olujimi maintained 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
Olujinmi said the findings of the tribunal were simply that the ballot papers were not signed at the back and not dated and proceeded to cancel the election where the ballots were used.
He said electoral irregularities are manifest on the disputed ballot papers.
On the issue of party membership, Olujinmi argued that the NNPP membership register did not show the name of Abba Yusuf on it.
Counsel for INEC Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, supported the arguments of Olanipekun.
He submitted that the decisions of the lower courts were flawed.
