Quote:Tribunal shocks Kano, says PDP agent, not Gawuna and Sulen-Garo, snatched disputed Gama results

Contrary to a widely held belief, the chairperson of the Kano State Governorship Election Tribunal, Halima Shamaki, on Wednesday during her ruling, made what appeared to be a shocking revelation regarding the disputed Gama Ward result sheets,

Recall that in the midnight of March 10, 2019, after the conclusion of the governorship election in the state, the police had arrested the duo of deputy governor Nasiru Gawuna and the commissioner for local government Murtala Sule-Garo for allegedly destroying result sheets in Gama Ward.

DAILY NIGERIAN gathered that the duo stormed the Nassarawa Collation Centre at 3 am on Airport Road in three SUVs and went to the collation centre and tore up the result sheets of Nassarawa Local Government.

However, while delivering judgement on the governorship election on Wednesday, Mrs Shamaki stated that the result sheet of the disputed Gama ward election was torn by an agent of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Umar Tanko-Yakasai.

In her submission, Justice Shamaki accused Mr Tanko-Yakasai of deliberately locking himself to have the opportunity of altering the result.

This submission, impliedly, vindicated Messrs Gawuna and Sulen-Garo who were caught red-handed by the police while tearing the disputed Gama Ward’s result at the Nassarawa Collation Centre.

“The carbonised copies of documentary evidences tendered by the petitioners were mostly unstamped, some are unsigned. Others contained rewritten data, hence amounted to documentary hearsay and therefore inadmissible.

“The act of self-locking up by Dr. Yakasai accorded him an opportunity to alter the snatched results,” she said.

DAILY NIGERIAN reports that on Wednesday, the tribunal dismissed the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship candidate, Abba Kabir-Yusuf who challenged the victory of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje in the 2019 election, due to lack of merit.

Justice Shamaki also argued that INEC was right to declare the March 9 election inconclusive.