CTC Judgment Showed Appeal Court Upheld Kano Gov’s Election – Falana

Posted by Thandiubani on Wed 22nd Nov, 2023 - tori.ng

Recall that the appellate court sacked Governor Yusuf and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) candidate in its judgment delivered on Friday.

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has revealed that the Court of Appeal upheld the election of Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf.

According to him, this is according to the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Court of Appeal judgment.

Recall that the appellate court had sacked Governor Yusuf and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) candidate in its judgment delivered on Friday.

However, in the CTC of the judgment released by the court on Tuesday, several pronouncements appeared contradictory.

In the CTC, most of the rulings were in favour of Yusuf, who was the appellant in the appeal, while the 1st respondent was the All Progressives Congress (APC), with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the NNPP as 2nd and 3rd respondents.

Speaking on Tuesday night on Arise News Primetime, Falana said the CTC showed that the majority judgement of the Court upheld his appeal and granted all the reliefs sought by the governor.

Falana said he was surprised when he read a copy of the judgement to see that the majority judgement set aside the judgement of the lower tribunal and awarded cost in favour of the governor.

He said: “You will be surprised if I show you the judgement. To my utter dismay, the majority judgement of the Court of Appeal in Kano upheld the Appeal, set aside the judgement of the lower court and awarded cost in favour of the governor that was removed by the lower Tribunal. There are contradictions which the court can no longer explain, but which are likely to be taken up by the Supreme Court.

‘’Contrary to the impression that has been given out there, the majority judgement of the Court of Appeal has confirmed that the judgement of the lower court was wrong and has set it aside in writing, upheld the Appeal and granted all the reliefs sought by Governor Abba. So, you ask yourself, what’s going on?’’

The senior lawyer stated that no serious democracy allows the court to determine the winner of elections, adding that Nigeria must put an end to it.

He said Nigeria is the only country in the world that records the highest number of election petitions, calling for a mechanism to be put in place to deal with electoral offenders no matter how highly placed.