Kano State: NNPP asks Supreme Court to reverse Appeal Court’s judgment.

Kano State: NNPP asks Supreme Court to reverse Appeal Court’s judgment.

The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has asked the Supreme Court to reverse the November 17 judgment of the Court of Appeal, affirming the sack of its candidate, Kabir Yusuf as the Governor of Kano State.

In a 10-ground notice of appeal filed yesterday, the NNPP also wants the apex court to “make an order upholding the portion of the judgment of the Court of Appeal, setting aside the judgment of the trial tribunal in petition No: EPT/RV/GOV/11/20235 and making order as to cost in favour of the appellant (NNPP).”

The NNPP is contending, in its first ground of appeal, that the Justices of the Court of Appeal erred to have, after noting that it’s candidate score the majority of votes cast, proceeded to hold at page 60 of its judgment that “when section 134(1)(a) of the Electoral Act , 2022 is juxtaposed and read in conjunction with section 177(c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 ( as amended ), it is clear that a door, or at least a window, of jurisdiction has been opened to a court or tribunal to entertain and determine a claim or an assertion in an election petition that the person, whose election has been challenged, was not qualified to contest the election because he was not a member of a political party.”

The NNPP also faulted the Appeal Court for allegedly delving into “alternative hypothetical scenario that party register could sustain ground of disqualification of 1st respondent (Yusuf) if the objection to the ground had not been upheld and thus disqualified appellants’ (NNPP) candidate by holding, at page 63 of the judgment to overrule the trial court.”

It also stated that Court of Appeal erred when it held that “if, as rightly found by the tribunal, that the appellant, Yusuf Abbe Kabir was not a member of the 1” respondent (NNPP) as at the time he was purportedly sponsored for the governorship election held on the 18th day of March 2023, then be was not qualified to contest the election by virtue of Section 177 (c) of the Constitution.