Abba Yusuf, Nigeria’s Kano State governor whose win was revoked by the election tribunal on Wednesday, has said he will appeal the decision.
Yusuf, who had been declared the winner of the March 18, 2023 gubernatorial election, was dethroned, and his victory awarded to the first runner-up Nasir Gawuna.
The tribunal said some 165,000 votes were irregularly added to Yusuf’s tally, which totalled more than one million.
The judges therefore deducted the “irregular” votes from Yusuf’s count, a tally that placed him below Gawuna, who had more than 890,000 votes in the March election. Gawuna ran on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party ticket.
Yusuf, who ran on New Nigeria People’s Party, has said he doesn’t agree with the tribunal’s findings, and will therefore challenge the ruling at the Court of Appeal.
'Errors and misapplication of law'
“As human beings, their (tribunal judges’) judgement may not be absolutely perfect, there are errors and misapplication of the law as pointed out by our legal team,” Yusuf said on X, formerly known as Twitter on Wednesday.
“We have already instructed our legal team to appeal this judgement as soon as possible to ensure that justice is done,” Yusuf said, suggesting that if he loses at the Court of Appeal, he will challenge the decision again at the Supreme Court.
“We want to assure you that this will neither dampen our spirit nor slow us down as this is a temporary setback,” he said.
A 24-hour curfew declared in the northern Nigeria state of Kano on Wednesday following the election tribunal’s ruling was peacefully observed.
