The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has revealed the joker used by the party to nail the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) at the Appeal Court last Friday.
Ganduje said that the NNPP’s desperation to have a governor in Kano State was its greatest undoing as it gave ticket to the sacked governor without noticing that INEC had closed accepting nomination forms.
The immediate past Kano State governor said they (APC) adequately exploited the development in their case and came out victorious.
Ganduje made the revelation while addressing some party supporters on Saturday.
He said “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 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 Gwuna and told him to hold it tight. When we filed a petition at the Kano governorship election 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 Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja had on Friday nullified the election of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of justices. They held that Governor Yusuf was not a valid candidate in the gubernatorial election held in the state on March 18.
It maintained that evidence that was adduced by the parties established that Governor Yusuf was not a member of the NNPP, at the time the election was held. (The Nation)
