A Federal High Court sitting in Kano has nullified the governorship primary election of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano State.
The court presided over by Justice Lewis Alaoge, consequentially, ordered the party to conduct a fresh governorship primary election to determine its candidate within 14 days from today.
A PDP governorship aspirant in the state, Alhaji Ibrahim, Ali Amin, had approached the court to nullify the primary election on the grounds that the exercise violated the provisions of the constitution of the party.
The plaintiff had asked the court to set aside the nomination of the Kano State governorship candidate of the party urging it to compel the second respondent (INEC) to remove, delete or refuse to recognise any governorship candidate that was forwarded to it by the first respondent (PDP) for the purpose of the 2019 general elections.
In an encounter with our correspondent at the premises of the court after the judgement, the defence counsel in the case, Barrister Bashir Yusuf, faulted the judgement of the court.
According to him, “Abba, who is the governorship candidate of the PDP, is not a party to this suit. He was not joined by the plaintiff. The plaintiff only sued PDP and INEC. And by law, if you are not a party to the suit, the order of the court should ordinarily not affect you.
“Secondly, there is a subsisting judgement of Kano High Court 3 which had the same concurrent powers with this court, which had declared Alhaji Abba Yusuf as the winner of the primary election of the PDP in the state. That order is still valid,” he stated.
“With the effect of that judgement and the fact that Abba is not a party to the suit, he cannot be affected by the outcome of this suit. And therefore, Abba remains the candidate of the party, until and except a court of higher jurisdiction thinks otherwise,” he stated.
