INEC withdraws its appeal of the tribunal’s decision to remove the governor of Kano

The Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, has given up on its appeal of the Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal’s decision to declare Governor Abba Yusuf’s election invalid.

INEC stated that it withdrew its appeal because it had no justification to contest any verdict in a letter dated October 6 and signed by Suleiman Alkali, the head of the commission’s legal department in Kano.

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“I have been told by the Commission headquarters that INEC has no justification for appealing any judgement as an umpire.

The letter, which was sent to the secretary of the Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, stated that as a result, “the National Commission In charge of Legal Services and National Commissioner in charge of Kano zone directed that the appeal be withdrawn and all processes for all Appeals should be forwarded to the Kano Office.”

The letter INEC sent to the Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal withdrawing its appeal has now been removed, nonetheless.

Suleiman Alkali, the head of INEC’s Kano legal division, confirmed the event and stated that the letter has been withdrawn because it was unnecessary.

He reaffirmed INEC’s intention to pursue the appeal of the ruling.

On September 20, a three-person tribunal removed Governor Abba Yusuf from office and proclaimed Nasiru Gawuna, the APC candidate, the victor of the March 18 governorship election.

According to the tribunal’s decision, which was delivered over Zoom’s teleconference service, 165,663 votes cast for Mr. Yusuf were deemed illegitimate since they were not stamped or signed.

However, the electoral commission had already filed a 33-ground appeal against the ruling, claiming that the trial tribunal had committed a legal error by naming the petitioner’s candidate, who is not a party to the dispute, as the election’s victor.

Furthermore, it stated that the tribunal “erred in law and fell into grave error when it failed or neglected to properly evaluate the evidence before it, especially evidence elicited during cross-examination by the Appellant which had a far-reaching consequence on the resolution of the issues in the Petition thereby occasioning a miscarriage of justice to the Appellant.”

On a different ground, INEC claimed that the tribunal entered the case, specifically by privately looking through documents in the corners of their chambers, performing mathematical calculations, making discoveries, and investigations, and arriving at conclusions that could only have been reached by evidence demonstrated in the open court, which was not done in this case, rendering the entire proceeding invalid.