The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Kano state, has said the governor-elect of the state, Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria People Party, NNPP, scored only 178,374 votes in the last governorship election in the state and shouldn’t have been declared the winner.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Yusuf, the winner of the March 18, 2023 governorship election in the state.
The electoral umpire said the NNPP candidate scored a total of 1,019,602 votes while it said the candidate of the APC, Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna scored 890,705.
But the party, in its petition before the state election petition tribunal, said NNPP and its candidate had 896,022 unlawful votes during the election and if subtracted from the 1,019,602 will leave him with 178,374 votes.
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The party alleged that unlawful ballot papers that did not have the signature, stamp and date of the election were used in casting votes for the 2nd Respondent.
According to the party, the unlawful ballot papers without signatures, stamps and dates were used in 32 local governments of the state during the conduct of the election.
The party said in the petition, “The 2nd Respondent (Yusuf) was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
“Your Petitioner repeats paragraphs 1 – 83 of the Petition herein in support of the ground of the Petition that the 2nd Respondent was not elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
“Your Petitioner says further that in the election to the Office of Governor of Kano held on the 18th March 2023 unlawful ballot papers that did not have the signature stamp and date of the election were used in casting votes for the 2nd Respondent in all the polling units in the under listed Local Government Areas.
“Your Petitioner says that the votes cast for the 2nd Respondent tainted by these unlawful ballot papers are the following:-
“The Petitioners hereby give notice to the 1st Respondent to recount the ballot papers in the course of trial of the affected Local Government Areas in Kano Stated pleaded above.
“Your Petition says that when the unlawful votes of the 2nd Respondent amounting to 896,022 votes are deducted from the scores of the 2nd Respondent the net result will be that the 2nd Respondent scored 178,374 votes and the Petitioner and its candidate secured a majority of lawful votes of 890,705 and ought to have been returned elected and a winner of the election.”
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