The Kano State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, on Wednesday, sacked the state governor, Yusuf Abba, of the New Nigeria People’s Party.
The tribunal, therefore, declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Nasir Gawuna, winner of the March 18 governorship poll.
The three-man panel, led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay, commenced the proceedings virtually a few minutes before 10:00 am and transmitted from Miller Road, Kano venue of the Election Petition Tribunal.
The tribunal also withdrew the Certificate of Return presented to Yusuf by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
INEC had declared that Yusuf polled 1,019,602 votes to defeat Gawuna, who scored 890,705 votes.
However, the court deducted 165,663 votes from Yusuf’s total, stating that the affected ballot papers were not stamped or signed and therefore declared invalid.
The ruling comes about six months after the APC candidate conceded defeat to Yusuf in the wake of INEC’s presentation of the certificate of return to the NNPP candidate.
In a two-minute audio statement on March 29, Gawuna stated that “as a good Muslim”, he was compelled to accept the outcome of the election, whether in his favour or not.
He added that although his campaign team had requested a review of the election results by INEC, upon review, the commission had found Yusuf to be the winner of the election.
