Following the court of appeal affirmed Abba Yusuf as duly elected Kano Governor and awarded to him one million naira against the ruling party, the All-Progressives Congress (APC) has responded to an error in the certified true copy (CTC) of the Court of Appeal judgment.
The party said it has yet to officially receive the CTC of the judgment.
On Tuesday, a purported CTC of the Appeal Court judgment surfaced online, showing a stack contradiction to the verdict of the appellate court which sacked Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf as Kano governor.
The document shows that Governor Yusuf’s election victory was allegedly affirmed contrary to the verdict delivered in court.
But addressing the matter during a press briefing at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja on Wednesday, the APC National Legal Adviser, Prof. Abdulkareem Abubakar Kana, said the party has yet to receive the CTC of the judgment.
Kana said the alleged discrepancy in the court’s pronouncement and the content of the CTC may be as a result of typographical error.
“As far as my office is concerned, we have not received an official copy of the certified true copy of the judgment,” Kana stated. “However, we will write and request a copy.
“If the copy that is conveyed to us still contains this error, we will take appropriate action.
“What we will do, and have already done, is to write a request demanding the CTC. Until we receive the CTC containing the error that is being circulated, we will not know what to do next.”
Kana further stated that if anyone had received the CTC containing the error, they should have taken the necessary steps to bring it to the court’s attention.
“But I will say that the court should have taken the necessary steps to make corrections,” he concluded.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) as the winner of the March 18 governorship poll in Kano State.
But the tribunal overturned his election and declared Gawuna of the APC as the winner of the election.
The tribunal led by Justice Oluyemi Osadebay declared 165,663 out of the 1,019,602 votes scored by Yusuf as invalid, thereby reducing the Kano governor’s total score to 853,939 while Ganuwa’s 890,705 votes were not affected.
The tribunal had also ruled that Yusuf’s nomination as NNPP’s candidate was in breach of the Electoral Act 2022 as he was not qualified to contest the poll.
The governor, however, appealed the judgment. In its judgment on Friday, the Court of Appeal upheld the findings of the tribunal, thereby affirming Ganuwa as Kano’s duly elected governor.
