The Court of Appeal, which has continued to receive backlashes from Nigerians over the controversial orders, brought out the new certified copy – a 68-page document obtained by SaharaReporters on Wednesday.

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday released another Certified True Copy (CTC) of its ruling on the Kano State Governorship Election barely 24 hours after it brought out the first CTC which contained its Order affirming the election of Governor Kabir Yusuf and awarding N1million against the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Court of Appeal, which has continued to receive backlashes from Nigerians over the controversial orders, brought out the new certified copy – a 68-page document obtained by SaharaReporters on Wednesday.

In the new ruling, the court has now backtracked and ordered that the Kano governor should rather pay N1million to the APC as costs.

In the new CTC also, the Court of Appeal in the ruling read by Justice Moore Aseimo Abraham Adumen, said Governor Yusuf’s appeal was dismissed.

The justice said, “A person must first be a member of a political party before he can be legally or validly sponsored by that party as a candidate for a general election. Where a political party carelessly sponsors a person who is not its member as a candidate for an election, such an act of sponsorship, like a court or tribunal, which undertakes to exercise jurisdiction, which it does not have or possess, is nothing but a nullity, irrespective of whether such a person performs excellently well in the questioned election.

Sponsorship without membership is like putting something on nothing and it cannot stand.

“The applicable legal maxim is: "Ex nihilo nihil fit" which means: "From nothing nothing comes". In this case, the 3rd respondent shot herself in its foot by undertaking to sponsor the appellant before fishing for his membership of the party after the election.

“By way of a subtle reminder to our political actors and players, this case is a very clear example of a political party or some of its members acting with brazen, imperforate or impervious impunity, as if the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) is not binding; by presenting a person as its candidate for a serious general election when, by its own member register, it is ex facie manifest that the person was not its member before the election. And the same political party, or members thereof, would wake up to accuse the Judiciary of sundry wrongdoings, including the infamous allegation of corrupt practices.

“From the facts of this case, I am tempted to think and say that within the collective conscience of the appellant and the 3rd respondent they know the truth of this matterAnd I am reminded of those indelible and evergreen words, credited to the highly revered sage Uthman Dan Fodio, that: "Conscience is like an open wound, only truth can heal it" I will say no more

“I will conclude by stating that the live issues in this appeal are hereby resolved in favour of the 1st respondent and against the appellant. In the circumstances, I resolve all the issues in favour of the 1st respondent and against the appellant


“Therefore, I find no merit in this appeal which is liable to be and is hereby dismissed. The judgment of the tribunal in Petition No.: EPT/KN/GOV/01/2023 between: ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS (APC) vINDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION & 2 ORS. delivered on the 20th day of September, 2023 is hereby affirmed.

“The sum of N1,000,000.00 (one million naira only) is hereby awarded as costs in favour of the 1st respondent and against the appellant.”

Meanwhile, SaharaReporters had on Tuesday reported that the Court of Appeal actually set aside the ruling of the Kano Governorship Election Tribunal which sacked Governor Kabir Yusuf and ordered the All Progressives Congress (APC) to pay him N1million, according to the certified copy of the ruling, obtained by SaharaReporters.

According to the court document, the appeal court set aside the ruling of the election tribunal in the petition of the APC, PT/KN/GOV/01/2023 between the APC and the governor.

According to the certified court document of the Court of Appeal obtained by SaharaReporters on Tuesday, Yusuf Abba Kabir is the appellant while the APC, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) are the first, second and third respondents respectively.

The court ruling read by same Justice Moore Aseimo Abraham Adumen, had said, “I will conclude by stating that the live issues in this appeal are hereby resolved in favour of the 1 respondent and against the appellant. In the circumstances, I resolve all the issues in favour of the appellant and against the 1 respondent.

“Therefore, I find no merit in this appeal which is liable to be and is hereby dismissed. The judgment of the tribunal in Petition No.: PT/KN/GOV/01/2023 between: ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS APC) v. INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION & 2 RS. delivered on the 20th day of September, 2023 is hereby set aside.

“The sum of N1,000,000.00 (one million naira only) is hereby awarded costs in favour of the appellant and against the 1st respondent.”

Yusuf, who contested on the platform of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), was declared the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after the poll in March.

The tribunal had deducted 165,663 votes from Yusuf’s total as invalid votes, stating that the affected ballot papers were not stamped or signed and therefore declared invalid.

The ruling came about six months after the APC candidate conceded defeat to Yusuf in the wake of INEC’s presentation of the certificate of return to the NNPP candidate.

https://saharareporters.com/2023/11/22/breaking-court-appeal-releases-another-certified-copy-kano-state-governorship-election

Jankara market injunctions

Even APC members are lamenting too over the recurring judicial rigmarole.
Senator Machina who won APC primaries conducted in the presence of INEC was replaced with Senator Lawan who contested the presidential primaries of APC and lost to Tinubu.
Even against his wish (he personally withdrew from the case) APC was able to get Ahmed Lawan on the ballot through the judiciary, same for Akpabio and Dave Umahi.

I recall Rochas Okorocha lamenting why he didn't get similar judgement on the floor of the Senate being an APC member with similar case like Lawan, Akpabio and Umahi?

Then Senator Bulkachuwa of APC told us how he influenced judgements through his wife who was an Appeal Court Justice.

Last month retiring Justice Datijo during his valedictory speech even lambasted his fellow Justices for being cash and carry legal officers.

So this is beyond party affiliation, I am referring to some narrow minded people here like Sukanmi who claims to be distributing FreeStuffs here and sees everything through the prism of political partisanship and spinning every story into LP vs APC and Yoruba vs Igbo and not the future of the country.

There was obviously a mistake in the first one but we are all going to pretend like mistake don’t occur. Court judgement flow from the beginning to the end. Judges always start by explaining reasons behind their decisions before ending it with a consequential order.

Everything from the beginning to almost the end of the initial CTC was explaining why NNPP appeal failed and why the tribunal judgement was upheld. It was not the concluding part that contains the mistake and it’s good that it has been corrected. A costly mistake though I must admit. Such mistakes shouldn’t even occur in the first place but still, humans are not perfect and not infallible.

This should put a stop to the controversy but if e sure for NNPP, they can refuse to appeal till the time allowed for appeal expires. Body go tell them why!

Our judiciary is for the highest bidder, it’s very unfortunate seriously. Now both the Nnpp lawyers and APC lawyers will tender different CTC true copies in the Supreme Court of justice and the Supreme Court of justice will check their copies before they dish out judgement in their various appeal. Nigeria is for the highest bidder. Very unfortunate.