TELL Magazine

The governor of Kano State, Mr. Kabiru Yusuf has been sacked by the Election Petition Tribunal, while Bala Mohammed, his Bauchi state counterpart has defeated Sadique Abubakar, retired Air Commodore and former Chief of Air Staff who ran on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC in the March 18, 2023 governorship election. Justice P. T. Kwahar, leading two other colleagues nullified Abubakar’s petition, ruling instead that contrary to the APC candidate’s submission the governorship election in Bauchi State was conducted in accordance with the law. Mohammed won the election for a second term on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. A former minister of the federal capital territory , Mohammed is known to have greatly improved on the infrastructure of the the state since taking office in 2019. He is also a notable leader of the PDP.
But the court, in the case of Kano governorship election averred that there were errors in the computation, as some ballot papers were neither stamped nor signed. The court therefore subtracted 165,653 being invalid votes originally realised from the said unsigned ballot papers from the votes of Yusuf. The court, therefore, ruled that the certificate of return earlier issued to Yusuf, candidate of the New Nigerian People’s Party, NNPP by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC be withdrawn by the commission and a new one issued to Nasir Gawuna, candidate of the APC at the poll.
Gawuna had congratulated Yusuf after the election but his party, the APC went to court to challenge the declaration of Yusuf by INEC.