- ‘Clerical error can’t invalidate verdict’
- Party seeks probe
- Police disperse protesters in Kano
- NNPP takes case to Supreme Court
- From Eric Ikhilae, Tony Akowe, Abuja and Fanel Ihyongo, Kano
The controversy over the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment sacking Kano State Governor Kabir Yusuf was laid to rest yesterday by the Court of Appeal.
The court insisted that its verdict pronounced in the open court on Friday remains as declared.
It reiterated that it affirmed the decision of the trial tribunal, which upheld the prayers of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Nasiru Gawuna.
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) on whose platform Yusuf was declared winner of the March 18 governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) also yesterday called on the National Judicial Council (NJC) to probe the alleged discrepancies in the CTC.
Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal, Umar Mohammed Bangari, said there was nothing to the controversies generated by the typographical errors noticed on the CTCs of the judgment obtained by parties.
Bangari explained that the discrepancies noticed on the body of the judgment were a result of a clerical error that did not, in any way, invalidate or change the findings and conclusion of the court.
But Kano State’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Haruna Isa-Dederi, disagreed with the appellate court’s clarification.
According to him, the CTC showed that the Court of Appeal confirmed Yusuf as the duly elected governor of the Northcentral states.
The registrar assured that the errors would be rectified once parties in the case file a formal application to that effect, adding that the court is empowered under Order 23 Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal Handbook to correct any clerical error once detected by the court or any of the parties in a case.
The Chief Registrar stated that contrary to insinuations being peddled, the judgment of the court, as pronounced in the open court, remains valid.
He said: “What happened in the part of the judgment being complained about is just a mere clerical error that ought not to draw any issue.
“The court is empowered to correct such clerical error and would be done as appropriate.”
The discrepancies noticed in the concluding part of the CTC of judgment released to parties have continued to generate reactions, with the NNPP claiming, among others, that the judgment was in its favour.
Some lawyers have been quoted to have expressed reservations about the discrepancies noticed in the body of the judgment.
The attorney-general said at a news conference in Kano Tuesday night that as indicated in the written judgment, the appellate court set aside the judgment of the Kano Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
He said: “By the evidence, as contained on page 67 of the copy of the Appeal Court judgment released on Tuesday and signed by Registrar, Jameel Ibrahim Umar, the appellate court upheld the victory of Abba Kabiru Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party as the duly elected Governor of Kano.”
Last Friday, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal filed by Yusuf and the NNPP. The verdict was unanimous.
In the lead judgment by Justice Moore Adumein, the court held that evidence supplied by the parties before the tribunal established that Yusuf was not a member of the NNPP at the time the election was held.
He noted that under Section 177(c) of the 1999 Constitution, Yusuf was not qualified to contest the governorship election since he was not validly sponsored by the NNPP.
Justice Adumein said: “A person must be a member of a political party before he can be sponsored for an election. Sponsorship without membership is like putting something on nothing.”
He noted it was the position of the law that every political party shall maintain the register of its voters, adding that Yusuf, to his own detriment, did not submit his NNPP membership register or even tender his statement on oath regarding his membership of the party during the hearing at the trial.
Justice Adumein said the Constitution made it mandatory for a political party to have a membership register, which should be submitted to INEC and the election tribunal when required.
He added: “As rightfully found, Abba Yusuf was not a member of the NNPP at the time he was purportedly sponsored by his party and he was not qualified to contest the March 18 governorship election.
“If you claim to be a member of a political party, is it not logical for you to say so by yourself and not by proxy?
“Even though membership of a political party is an internal affair, a political party cannot be permitted to circumvent or breach the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.
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“The tribunal was wrong not to have disqualified the appellant.
“Therefore, the failure of the appellant and the NNPP to comply with the 1999 Constitution is fatal to their election.”
Justice Adumein further held that the trial tribunal acted in the overall interest of justice when it allowed the APC to tender documents during the trial because INEC released documents to the party piecemeal.
He also held that the insistence of the respondents (at the tribunal) that APC ought to have joined its candidate (Gawuna) as a party in the proceeding was not supported by the Constitution.
The judge said a candidate is entitled to be represented by his political party during litigation.
He upheld the findings of the tribunal in relation to faulting result sheets which were not duly stamped by INEC.
Justice Adumein, while affirming the judgment of the tribunal, said: “All issues in this appeal are dismissed and the judgment of the tribunal is affirmed.”
Dissatisfied with INEC’s return of Yusuf as the winner of the election, the APC lodged a petition before the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, seeking to void the outcome of the election.
The petitioner argued that the election was conducted in gross violation of the constitution and the electoral law and that there were malpractices in the conduct of the March 18 governorship election in Kano.
In its judgment on September 20, the tribunal agreed with the petitioners that over 160,000 ballot papers “were not signed or stamped by INEC.”
The tribunal, led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan Osadebay, proceeded to reduce Yusuf’s scores to 853,939 by deducting 165,663 votes but left Gawuna’s scores at 890,705, a decision that Yusuf took to the Court of Appeal.
NNPP seeks NJC probe
The NNPP urged the NJC to commence an investigation into the judgment to unravel what went wrong in the appeal.
The party claimed that while the final judgment of the three-man panel of Justices upheld the judgment of the lower tribunal, “snippets from the CTC indicated that the judgment was in its favour”.
Its National Chairman, Alhaji Kawu Ali, told reporters at a news conference that in the alternative, the NJC should conduct an independent investigation to unravel what he called the riddle.
Ali alleged that there were initial plans to sabotage the appeal process of the party and its candidate with the delay in releasing the CTC of the judgment to them.
He said: “All efforts to get the Certified True Copies (CTC) of the judgment for our Legal team, up till Tuesday, November 21 to prepare our processes for the appeal proved abortive and this prompted the alarm we raised up till yesterday (Tuesday) morning because time was running out on us. We all know that the appeal must be filed within 14 days.
“Now we wish to inform the world that we were finally able to collect the CTC yesterday afternoon.
“To our greatest surprise, the CTC showed that the judgment delivered by Honourable Justice Moore Aseimo Abraham Adumein (JCA) and concurred to by Honorable Justice Bitrus Gyarazama JCA, and Honorable Justice Lateef Adebayo Ganiyu (JCA) is actually in favour of our candidate, the Governor of Kano State, Abba Kabir Yusuf.”
The party said that on page 67 of the extant judgment and in its conclusive findings, the court held: “In the circumstances, I resolve all the issues in favour of the appellant (Yusuf Abba Kabir).
“The judgment of the tribunal in petition No: EPT/KN/GOV/01/2023 between the All Progressives Congress (APC) Vs INEC & 2 others 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 as costs in favour of the appellant (Engr. Abba Kabir Yusuf) and against the 1st respondent.(APC).”
Ali added: “This is the complex situation we as a political party and our candidate have found ourselves in.
“If at the point of delivering the judgment, there was a pronouncement that our appeal failed but the CTC of the same judgment in its conclusive findings actually resolved all the issues in our favour and even awarded costs in our favour against the APC, this definitely is a riddle.
“We are an interested party. We own the platform on which Abba Kabir Yusuf ran for the election and was declared the winner.
“We are calling on the NJC to without delay commence an investigation to unravel what happened in the matter.”
