A Federal High Court in Kano has disqualified all 44 chairmanship and councillor candidates of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) ahead of the October 26 local government elections in the state.
Justice Simon Amobeda gave the order on Friday in a suit filed by Engineer Muhammad Babayo and a faction of the NNPP against the party’s leadership.
Amobeda ordered the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC) to only accept and recognise a new list of candidates submitted by the faction led by the State Chairman, Dalhatu Shehu Usman, under the party’s constitution.
The suit listed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), KANSIEC, the Inspector General of Police, and the Director of the Department of State Services (DSS) as 1st to 4th defendants.
Justice Amobeda also barred security agencies from protecting polling units if the election goes ahead without the updated candidates’ list.
“The 2nd Defendant is hereby directed to accept as genuine and subsisting the list of NNPP candidates submitted to it by the recognized State Chairman, Dalhatu Shehu Usman; any other list submitted for the 2024 Local Government Election in Kano State should be rejected.”
“That the 3rd and 4th Defendants are forthwith restrained from providing security and protection to the scene of the Election plans to take place on the 26th October 2024,
“The defendant is hereby restrained from releasing the voters register for the 2nd Defendant to conduct the proposed election on 26th October 2024,” the judge declared.