Our reporter| The supreme court on Friday affirmed the nomination of Rufai Hanga as the Kano central senatorial district candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
The apex court removed Ibrahim Shekarau, a former Kano governor, who was earlier nominated by NNPP and declared winner of the election.
Shekarau dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the NNPP in May 2022 after months of leadership tussle with Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano.
He, however, decamped from NNPP to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in August 2022.
Owing to his defection from NNPP, the party moved to replace him with Hanga, a former senator.
But when the final list of senatorial candidates was published by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the former Kano governor was listed as the NNPP candidate.
Following the refusal of INEC to accept Hanga as a replacement for Shekarau, NNPP approached the court to seek redress.
The federal high court and appeal court ruled in favour of NNPP while affirming the nomination of Hanga as the party’s candidate.
Dissatisfied with the lower court’s ruling, INEC approached the supreme court.
On Friday, the apex court ruled that the electoral body’s appeal lacked merit and substance, and as such, dismissed it.
Emmanuel Agim, the pressing judge, upheld the verdict of the appeal court.
On February 28, INEC declared Shekarau as the winner of the Kano central senatorial district election.
Tijani Darma, the returning officer, said Shekarau polled 456,787 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Abdulkarim Zaura of APC who polled 168,677 votes.
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