No fewer than 50 civil society organisations have petitioned the European Union, United States of America, France, among others, over the controversial judgment of the Court of Appeal which sacked Abba Yusuf as Kano State governor.
The CSOs, under the auspices of the Coalition of Civil Society Groups against Injustice, alleged plot to truncate the will of the people of Kano by desperate politicians who lost out during the March 18 governorship polls.
In separate letters dated November 30 and addressed to various heads of missions and embassies, the groups lamented that the contradictions in the recent Court of Appeal judgement have already heated up the polity in the state.
The letter, which was signed by its President, Mukhtar Idris, and Secretary, Salim Ibrahim, appealed to the EU and its western allies to invoke relevant international protocols and conventions to ensure that Nigerian judiciary does not scuttle the democratic choices of the Kano people.
“Now that the political atmosphere in Kano State is tensed, peaceful protests are being waged every day by the people in many nooks and crannies of Kano State in search of salvation from the enemies of free, fair, and credible elections who believed in suppressing the will of the majority as it happened.”
The groups also recalled how the victory of Mr Yusuf was allegedly stolen during the 2019 elections, warning that a repeat of what happened in the past should not be allowed.
“In the 2019 Kano State Governorship election, the incumbent Governor of Kano State, Engr. Abba Kabir Yusuf, won the election with overwhelming votes, but his mandate was stolen by the opposition in a questionable, inconclusive election and court judgement, which since then left the general public in bewilderment, astonishment, and pain.
“Thus, set bad precedence for election manipulation, maneuver, and mischief by anti-democratic elements of Kano that have a firm grip on the Nigerian Judiciary and its corrupt judges, as the recent CERTIFIED TRUE COPY (CTC) released by the Court of Appeal in Governor Abba’s case has glaringly demonstrated and/or revealed.
“At this we would like on behalf of the millions of people of Kano State who came out en masses on 18th March, 2023 and voted for Engr. Abba Kabir Yusuf to call on the European Union and its western allies being the most successful democracies in the world that invested colossal financial and material resources for the establishment and consolidation of democracy in Nigeria to use the relevant International protocols and conventions to ensure that Judiciary does not scuttle the democratic choices of the people of Kano State and huge finances and material committed by the international community are not wasted and above all people’s hope in the intrinsic values and promises of democracy and social justice is not recklessly jettisoned and bastardized in an effort to satisfy the interest of the minority at the detriment of the majority,” the letter added.
