TheCable

The New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) has expressed displeasure over the non-release of the certified true copy (CTC) of the Kano gubernatorial verdict delivered by the court of appeal.

On Friday, the court of appeal sitting in Abuja affirmed the verdict of the Kano state governorship election petition tribunal.

The tribunal had sacked Abba Yusuf, candidate of the NNPP, as governor and declared Nasiru Gawuna of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the duly elected governor of the state.

Yusuf described the tribunal and court of appeal verdicts as a “miscarriage of justice”, saying he had informed his lawyers to proceed to the supreme court to challenge the judgment.

In a statement on Monday, Abba Ali, NNPP national chairperson, said the party was worried over the inability of the court to release the CTC of the judgment to the legal team to enable them proceed to the supreme court.

“This concern being expressed by the leadership of NNPP stems from the report from our legal team that all efforts to collect the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgement which will aid the process of filing their appeal have not yielded any fruits, four days after the judgement was delivered in Abuja,” the statement reads.

“It is a known fact that the issues of days and time are very germane in the preparation of processes for an appeal in such a situation.

“For the purpose of emphasis, it is an established fact that an Appellant only has a window of Fourteen (14) days to get his/her processes completed, and frittering away 4 days out of these 14 days is like setting a booby trap for the Appellant.”

Ali said the setback creates the impression that there are deliberate efforts in place to frustrate the the governor and the party in their quest to get “justice”.

The party chairperson said the NNPP had suffered “several cases of injustice”, even in the run-up to the general election, and called for the appeal court to treat the issue as a matter of urgency.