Victor Ezeja
The Abuja Appeal Court ruling sacking the Kano State Governor, Kabir Abba Yusuf, has continued to generate reactions, especially from the camp of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
Special Adviser to the Governor on International Relations, Muhammed Jamu, has described the appellate court judgment as a “miscarriage of justice”, adding that the party and the governor would challenge it at the Supreme Court.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe Appeal Court sitting in Abuja had on Friday upheld the nullification of the election of Yusuf earlier done by the Kano State Election Petition Tribunal. The appellate court declared that Yusuf was not a valid member of the NNPP as at the time of the election and was also validly nominated and sponsored by the party as required by the 1999 constitution as amended and the Electoral Act. It therefore declared the All Progressives Congress (APC), candidate, Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna as winner of the election and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue a fresh certificate of return to him.
Jamu, who featured on Channels Television Sunrise Daily on Monday morning, said the country’s democracy is currently beset by what he called “judicial rigmarole,” adding that the appellate court ruling runs contrary to other pronouncements earlier made in judgments by both the court and even the Supreme Court which is the highest appellate court in the country’s judicial system.
He said: “We were faced by a repertoire of judicial pronouncements. Courts have gone the other way. Suddenly, when it comes to the case of Kano, sincerely, it was a hoot.”
He argued that in the case of Peter Obi vs Tinubu, a five-man panel of justices of the Court of Appeal sat and made a judicial pronouncement on section 131(c) of the 1999 constitution as amended, which talks about the qualification for a presidential election and is the same with 177(c) which is about qualification for a gubernatorial election.
He explained that the justices in deciding the case before them, and while equally citing section 77 of the Electoral Act, whereby all political parties are mandated within 30 days to submit their voters register, held that no political party has the power to look into the activities of another political party and even if another has the right to do so, it is already status-barred because it is supposed to be a pre-election matter.
He added that the court went ahead to cite a plethora of cases that even the Supreme Court had ruled on to establish the fact that it had already been decided that a political party has the right to determine who its members are.
“No political party would submit the name of a person who is alien to that political party,” Jamu stated.
He further explained that given other conditions stipulated by INEC on the process of submission of names of electoral candidates by political parties which involves including the voter card numbers, NNPP fulfilled all constitutional requirements for nomination and saw reason the court should resort to giving such judicial interpretation to the law.
On his part, Salihu Yakasai, Special Adviser to APC national chairman on ICT and Digital Communication, asserted that Governor Yusuf and his party erred on different issues in their conduct during the election and that was what the court based its ruling on. He commended the judgment saying it was strictly based on prayers and arguments of the parties relating to what the laws say about the conduct of governorship polls.
Yakasai Said the APC’s argument in the case was based on the constitution which states that for one to be validly nominated for an election, he/she has to be a member of a political party and be validly sponsored by the party.
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with seven years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Master's degree in Mass Communication.
