The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Kano has sacked Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf and declared Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna the winner of the governorship election.
The tribunal gave the final judgement after cancelling some votes recorded by Governor Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP
Gawuna is of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
According to the Presiding Judge, Justice Oluyemi Akintan Osadabey, the margin of votes scored by the NNPP was not enough to give Governor Yusuf victory.
It said some of the votes credited to Yusuf were invalid.
The tribunal ordered the withdrawal of the certificate of return which INEC presented to Yusuf and directed a certificate of return to be issued to Gawuna.
The court deducted 165,663 votes from Yusuf’s total as invalid votes, 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.
