The Court of Appeal has endorsed the sack of Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano State, while another sitting in Abuja affirmed the election Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State.
Usman Gawuna of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is thus declared the Governor of Kano State.
Both judgements were delivered on Friday.
Affirming the verdict of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal that sacked Governor Yusuf, a three-member panel of the appellate court led by Justice Oluyemi Osadebay held that the NNPP breached constitutional provisions by sponsoring Yusuf who was not a member of the party.
On the Bauchi case, the three justices were who sat unanimously adopted the position read out by the presidung judge, throwing out the appeal of former Chief of Air Staff, Sadique Abubakar.
On the plea about fraudulent cancellations, mutilations and alterations to favour the PDP candidate, the appeal court noted that, if proven, falsification of results is a criminal matter that could lead to the cancellation of election results.
However, according to the court, the appellant had the burden to prove this and had to bring the genuine one, if he argued the one tendered by INEC was falsified.
In Kano, the decision of the court was grounded in the invalidation of 165,663 votes attributed to a deficiency in signatures or stamps by INEC. The adjustment brought Yusuf’s total votes to 853,939, whereas his APC counterpart, maintains 890,705 votes.
