The Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has dismissed Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf as the Kano State governor, announcing the All Progressives Congress-APC- candidate, Nasiru Gawuna, as the winner of the March 18th governorship elections.
Yusuf, who vied on the platform of the New Nigeria Peoples Party-NNPP, was declared the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, after the election in March.
However, on Wednesday, September 20, the three-man panel, after hearing the various petitions, had directed for the withdrawal of the certificate of return which INEC offered to Yusuf and ordered a certificate of return to be issued to Gawuna.
The court removed 165,663 votes from Yusuf’s total poll as invalid votes, commenting that the affected ballot papers had not been stamped or signed and was therefore invalid.
This judgement is coming about six months after the APC candidate lost to Yusuf in the aftermath of INEC’s presentation of the certificate of return to the NNPP candidate, Yusuf.