A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, Abuja division, presided by Justice Haruna Tsammani has set aside the judgement of the FCT High Court, filed over the 2021 ward and local government congresses, for lack of jurisdiction.
The court quashed the lower court judgment which gave Senator Ibrahim Shekarau’s G-7 faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano victory over the faction led by the state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.
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Upholding the appeal, filed by the Ganduje-led faction of the Kano APC, the appellate court held that the high court lacked the jurisdiction to try the case.
The Shekarau-led faction had approached the FCT High Court, shortly after the APC congresses in Kano during which the court upheld the group’s congresses, as against that of the Governor Ganduje-led side.
Dissatisfied with the high court ruling, Ganduje’s group headed to the Appeal Court to contest the ruling.
Also, in its ruling, the appellate court held that the case was not a pre-election matter but an internal matter of the ruling party, and therefore should be decided by the leadership of APC.
“The judgment of the lower court has been set aside for lack of territorial jurisdiction and also because it is an intraparty affair,” the Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice for Kano State, Barrister Lawan Musa told Daily Trust.
“The third ground is that even the originating process that were used to file the case was wrongly done as such even the originating process was set aside. All the decisions are unanimous.”
