Appeal Court sacks Abacha, restores Wali as PDP guber candidate in Kano

The Court of Appeal sitting in Kano has set aside the judgment of a High Court that recognised Muhammad Abacha as the gubernatorial candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano state.

The appellate court consequentially ordered that Sadiq Wali, who was earlier recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), remained the valid gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Kano.

In a unanimous judgment by the three-man-panel read by Justice Usman Musale, the court held that the law was clear that only the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party could conduct the gubernatorial primary elections of a party and since Abacha did not participate in the primary election conducted by NEC that produced Wali, he therefore had no locus standi to challenge the said primary.

Revall that the presidential candidate of the PDP? Ayiku Abubakar, and the party hierarchy had refused to endorse either of party’s two parallel gubernatorial candidates.

None was handed the usual symbolic handing over og tje party’s flags to the party’s gubernatorial candidate, which was on the agenda of the rally.

The party in Kano has been enmeshed in leadership crisis which culminated in the emergence of two parallel gubernatorial