By Yakubu Nasiru Khalid
In the May, 2023 gubernatorial elections, Abba Kabir was the candidate for New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) in Kano State.
He won with a huge and unprecedented margin 165,664 votes as a difference between two prominent contestant parties, APC and NNPP.
Over 165,664 illegal votes counted in favor of NNPP during the election which allegedly lacked makers indicators of authenticity of INEC, like date, a stamp and a signature which led to writing a petition against the winning party for using illegal votes during the polls which led to win by fraud.
The Petition Election Tribunal judgement was the shocking, surprising, and striking to many people including legal practitioners who saw the judgement as being fraught with so many errors and biases.
The judgement was greeted with mixed reactions, complaints and general outburst .
Views on the decision by legal practitioners stand that the appeal court must restore power to Abba Kabir Yusif who INEC was declared as the first winner of the election for following reasons:
Firstly, Kaduna State Tribunal Election Petition judgement alerted that the Tribunal Court has no jurisdiction to cancel any votes which is in compliance with consent of INEC agents and others election official such as party agents, security agents etc. This shows Kano Tribunal Election petition Judgement failed to applied the same act or law which Kaduna Tribunal Court applied in making judgement.
Secondly, In the INEC 2022 Act Section: 63 says ” If presiding officer satisfied with a vote which does not bear official mark was from a book of ballot paper which was furnished from the Presiding Officer (PO) of polling unit in which the vote was cast at the election count the ballot paper”. It’s apparently that before a unit election results pass to the compiling ward centre has to get legal approve by the parties agents.
Thirdly, In the petition against victory of NNPP, the party was accused of using unauthorized and illegitimate votes has failed not meet proceeding of proof, “beyond reasonable doubt”, there was so many questions left like specification at which polling units the fraud was committed, where were the party agents of petitioners then and the number of accusing votes for each polling units by the petitioners. On the other hand, in the election petition act, specification is mandatory to be presented against each polling accused for using illegal votes.
In addition, while votes of other political parties remain intact, nevertheless it was discovered that a large number of votes in the opposition kitty lacked makers of indicators from the INEC official during review?
The development raises questions from legal practitioners and other professionals, who were left with no alternative than to conclude that the tribunal decision was bias, partial and wickedly design to favour APC.
Undoubtedly, justice and unbiased judgment will restore victory to the NNPP.
