Appeal Court Dashes Abacha's Guber Hope; Okays Masari For Katsina
ABUJA, April 20, (THEWILL) – Mohammed Sani Abacha, son of late military despot and a governorship aspirant on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Kano State was today thrown out of the race by a Court of Appeal in Abuja.
Instead, the court ruled that Mohammed Abacha was not duly nominated by the CPC as its governorship candidate for the Tuesday, April 26 governorship election in the state. The party had maintained that it did not nominate Abacha as its candidate.
The Appeal Court set aside an earlier ruling by a Federal High Court in Abuja which had handed Abacha the CPC ticket for Kano and declared Brigadier General Lawal Jafaru (rtd) as the CPC candidate for the election.
The 3-member Appeal court held that the counter affidavit filed by Isa was uncontroverted by 1st Respondent Mohammed Abacha and that the lower court was wrong to have jettisoned it adding that the court should have seen that the primary that Abacha claimed to have emerged as candidate was inconclusive, plus that Mohammed Abacha had been convicted and jailed abroad for money laundering.
The Justices also agreed as stated in a counter affidavit that Mohammed Abacha offered the Chairman of the CPC Electoral Committee, Professor N. U. Suleiman N1m bribe through one Sani Usman to declare him winner adding that the primary was disrupted by violence which made it impossible for the electoral officers to reach 9 local governments areas thereby allowing election results from 14 local government areas to be forged.
The justices declared that, “With the above scenario, can one say that the election on January 12 was conclusive? Therefore, the trial Judge was wrong by holding that the 1st Respondent won the primary election. The judgement given by the lower court is hereby set aside and the appeal succeeds.”
In another governorship candidacy dispute, the same Appeal Court Justices presided by Justices Jimi Olukayode-Bada, Muhammed Garba Lawal, and Regina Obiageli declared former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Honourable Amimu Bello Masari as the gubernatorial candidate of the CPC in Katsina State nullifying the candidacy of Senator Yakubu Garba Lado.
The Appeal Court upturned an earlier judgement of a Federal High Court which declared Senator Yakubu Garba Lado as candidate of the CPC.
The justices maintained that the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the CPC did not approve the party primary that gave Lado the initial ticket.
They also ruled that the state CPC Chairman erred by usurping the powers of the BOT when it forwarded the names of the candidates that emerged from its illegal primary of January 15, 2011 to INEC.
The justices declared the CPC primary conducted on January 13, 2011, where Masari was elected as the party’s authentic primary.
“The party’s constitution and guidelines are binding on the Respondents and the Party’s primary election held on January 15, 2011 never had the sanction of the CPC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) or the Board of Trustees,” the court ruled.