The Supreme Court on Friday sacked Senator Ibrahim Shekarau
as the candidate of the New Nigerian Peoples Party and recognised Senator
Rufa’i Hanga as the party’s candidate for the 2023 general election.
Shekarau was declared the winner of
the 2023 Kano Central Senatorial District election under NNPP.
Shekarau, a sitting senator was in the NNPP and was
nominated to vie for the senatorial position under its platform.
However, before the elections, he announced his defection
from the NNPP and abandoned his senatorial ambition to join the Peoples
Democratic Party.
But the Independent National Electoral Commission later
insisted that it still recognised him as the legitimate NNPP candidate, even
though the party replaced him with Hanga.
Shekarau, who is going to the red chamber for the second
time, was declared by the returning officer of the senatorial district,
Professor Tijjani Darma.
According to INEC, Shekarau polled 456,787 votes to defeat
the All Progressives Congress candidate, Alhaji Abdulkarim Zaura, who polled
168,677 votes.
However, the Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the nomination
of Hanga as the NNPP’s authentic candidate.
In a unanimous judgement, Justice Inyang Okoro-led
five-member panel of the court faulted INEC’s refusal to replace Shekarau with
Hanga after the former left the party for PDP before the election.
Justice Emmanuel Agim, who read the lead judgment, written
by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, dismissed the INEC appeal.
The court, however, upheld the two earlier concurrent
judgments by the Federal High Court and Court of Appeal, both in Abuja, that
affirmed Hanga as the authentic candidate of NNPP.
Details later…
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