The Supreme Court has dismissed the three appeals filed by members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano State loyal to the Senator Ibrahim Shekarau. In a unanimous judgment on Friday, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court held that the appeals by the members of the faction, otherwise referred to as the G-7, were without merit.
The judgment delivered in the appeal marked: SC/CV/250/2022, filed by Mutlaka Bala Sulaiman and others v. the APC and others, was applied to the other two similar appeals. They included the one marked: SC/CV/251/2022, filed by Mutlaka Bala Sulaiman and others v. the APC and others, and the other marked: SC/CV/252/2022 by Musa Muhammad Chola and others v. APC and others.
The appeals were against a judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja which reversed the November 30, 2021 judgment by Justice Hamzat Muazu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, which upheld the Ward and Local Government congresses conducted by the Shekarau faction. A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal had, in the February 17, 2022 judgment, held that a High Court in the FCT has no jurisdiction over the Wards and LG congresses conducted in Kano State.
The Court of Appeal added that it was wrong for the High Court of the FCT to have assumed jurisdiction over a dispute about the congresses conducted in Kano. Both factions of the APC loyal to the incumbent governor, Abdullahi Ganduje and Shekarau had on October 18, 2021 held parallel congresses, which produced two sets of state executives. The Ganduje faction produced Abdullahi Abbas as state chairman, while Shekarau faction produced Haruna Danzago for the same position.
Upon its intervention, the national leadership of the APC recognised the congresses conducted by the Ganduje faction, a decision the Shekarau faction challenged in the suit they filed before the High Court of the FCT.
