Breaking: S-Court fixes Jan 20 for judgement of Kano Gov dispute
By Andrew Orolua
The Supreme Court has reserved judgment on the appeal filed by the governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Abba Yusuf challenging the election of Gov Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State till January 20, 2020 .
Alhaji Yusuf the runner up in the Kano State governorship election held on March 9, 2019 has appealed against the concurrent decisions of the tribunal and Court of Appeal that affirmed the election of Gov. Ganduje.
But Yusuf counsel, Chief Adegboyenga Awomolo ( SAN) on Tuesday urged the apex court to allow the appeal and upturn the decision of the lower court.
Chief M. Duru the counsel to All Progressives Congress (APC) the 2nd respondent adopted his brief of argument and asked the court to dismiss the appeal. He added that Awomolo oral submission have been adequately addressed. According to him, the appellant case was predicated on wrong premises.
He said that Form EC8B which the appellant based his arguments don’t contained all the result from the 44 local govt of area of Kano State.
“It did not contain the result of 207 polling units therefore the returning officers would not have declare the result ” he told the court.
He also said that 62 polling units from Gama were not collated because one Dr.Yakassi an agent of appellant carted away the results of these 62 polling units , locked himself up in a room for hours and later took the result to the commissioner of police.
“To allow the appeal will mean sanctioning election violence”‘ he added.
We have INEC form containing the result from polling units that were cancelled and their expert witness admitted that INEC was right to have cancelled them.
On his part counsel Dr. Alex Izinyon (SAN) adopt his processes and urged the court to dismiss the appeal. He added that the ground of the petition is one ground which have been firmly dealt with by the two lower courts.
Concurrent finds are unassailable.
EC8E is the final declaration of result not EC8D.
On it cross appeal,APC represented by Chief Duru urged the court to allow the cross appeal.
In his respond , Chief Adegboyenga Awomolo (SAN) PDP candidate urged the court to dismiss the cross appeal as mere academic.
Ahmed Raji (SAN) counsel to INEC also conceded the cross appeal .
Dr. Alex Izinyon also conceded the cross appeal
