The Department of State Services has denied a report that its operatives arrested one of the Judges of the Kano State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, PRNigeria is reporting.
The Tribunal had on Thursday delivered ruling in the petition on the March 18, 2023 governorship election in the state.
The petition was brought by the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, Nasiru Gawuna.
In the ruling, the Tribunal upheld the petition of the parties and overturned the victory of the New Nigeria Peoples Party and its candidate, Abba Yusuf, as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The rebuttal of the secret police comes in the wake of the allegation by the Chief Press Secretary of the Kano State Governor, Sanusi Bature, that the Kano State Government believes that the judges that handled the judgement of the Kano State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal were intimidated and arrested by the security agencies.
While speaking to PRNigeria on the phone, the spokesperson of the DSS, Dr. Peter Afunanya denied the claim by the Kano State Governor’s spokesperson.
Afunanya said: “This is a very ridiculous statement.
“Arresting judges for what reason?
“It is not true, please.”
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television, Bature said: “There is no reason why the DSS can arrest a judge without any suspicion.
“The DSS arrested one of the judges that delivered the judgement in Kano, and I believe that is intimidation.
“Even this virtual judgement they delivered, we do not know where they delivered it from.
“Probably, they delivered the judgement under duress or whatever, I am not sure.
“We do not know the location from which they delivered the judgment, and we do not know their condition because we could only see them on the screen.
“A lot of things happened behind the scene, and to our surprise, the person who was declared winner was not even joined in the case.
“Gawuna contested in the election, accepted defeat, and he congratulated Abba Kabir and said that he is not going to court.”
[Credit: PRNigeria]
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