THE National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has disclosed how his party capitalised on Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf’s mistake to nail him.
Ganduje said this while reacting to the Court of Appeal judgment that ousted Yusuf and declared the APC candidate and former Deputy Governor, Nasir Yusuf Gawuna, winner of the 18 March 2023, election.
The appellate court, on Friday, 17 November 2023, upheld an earlier decision of the Kano State Election Petition Tribunal, which voided 165,663 votes of Yusuf because they were not signed or stamped by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Consequently, the governor’s votes were reduced to 853,939, paving the way for Gawuna to overtake him in the final tally with 890,705 votes.
Displeased with the lower court decision, Yusuf and his party, the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), approached the appellate court for redress but still lost.
Not only did the appellate court approve the voided votes, but it also ruled that the governor didn’t qualify to run for the election as he was not a member of the NNPP when he contested.
In his reaction, Ganduje, the immediate past governor of Kano State, said they waited till the right time to use the governor’s mistake against him.
Governor Yusuf defected to the NNPP alongside his political godfather and the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Rabiu Kwankwaso, in 2022.
But Ganduje said Kwankwaso and his allies were so desperate that they did not notice INEC had closed accepting nomination forms when they joined the NNPP.
“They were in PDP and when the crisis heated up and they were punched repeatedly they left the party and started groping for a platform. Unfortunately, they ran into a political party symbolizing fruits. They were given tickets because their leader was daydreaming; their leader was ambitious to be the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but he was frightened.
“And because they desperately wanted a governor in Kano State, the party gave them a ticket to contest. But they made a serious blunder because when they joined the party, INEC had closed the submission of nomination forms. But they were blind and uneducated. They went into the ring without making careful observation of this.
“They did not know that we laid in wait. We took the file, submitted it to Dr Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna and told him to hold it tight. When we filed a petition at the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, we told the court that they were not fielded by the party. We told the court that when INEC closed accepting names of candidates, they did not join the party,” the APC National Chairman said.
Source: Daily Trust
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