Six months after a Federal High Court nullified Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s reappointment as the 16th Emir of Kano, the Kano Division of the Court of Appeal on Friday overturned the order.
The decision was made by a three-member panel of the appellate court in Abuja, which voided the June 20, 2024, decision of Justice Abubakar Liman that invalidated the Kano State Emirates Council (Repeal) Law 2024.
According to the appellate court, Justice Liman lacked jurisdiction to nullify the Kano State Government’s actions taken under the 2024 Emirates Council Law, effectively rendering his initial ruling moot.
The court ruled that the fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by Alhaji Aminu Babba Dan Agundi, an aggrieved kingmaker, was incompetent.
It maintained that since the originating suit was not instituted by due process of the law, it robbed the high court of the requisite jurisdiction to entertain it.
Persecondnews recalls that the Kano State House of Assembly had on May 23, last year, enacted the Kano State Emirate Council (Repeal) Law 2024, which the state Governor, Abba Yusuf, assented to on the same date.
Emboldened by the law, the governor took drastic measures, including deposing the 15th Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, and demoting the emirs of Bichi, Rano, Gaya, and Karaye emirates to district heads, effectively dissolving their emirates into the Kano Emirate.
Yusuf reappointed Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, also known as Sanusi II, as the Emir of Kano, a position from which he was deposed in 2020 by his predecessor, ex-Gov Abdullahi Ganduje, who had enacted a law dividing the Kano emirates into five.
Dissatisfied with Sanusi’s reappointment as head of the united emirates in Kano state, Alhaji Agundi, a kingmaker and Sarkin Dawaki Babba under the divided emirates, took legal action and secured a court order to maintain the status quo, allowing the deposed 15th Emir, Bayero, to remain in power.
In his subsequent verdict, Justice Liman ruled in favour of Alhaji Agundi, declaring Yusuf’s actions null and void, but the appellate court overturned the decision on Friday.
According to the appellate court panel led by Justice Mohammed Mustapha, despite the High Court’s jurisdiction to handle fundamental right enforcement cases under sections 46 (1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution, Alhaji Agundi’s suit didn’t qualify as such a case.
The court determined that the core of the plaintiff’s lawsuit revolved around a chieftaincy issue, specifically how the Kano State Government’s actions would impact his role as a kingmaker and the emirate status of his location.
However, it also ruled that the plaintiff should have pursued a civil action to address his concerns, rather than filing a fundamental right enforcement suit.
The court declared the suit improperly commenced, stripping the court of jurisdiction, and consequently ordered the case to be struck out for lack of competence.
Despite concurring that Justice Liman lacked jurisdiction, Justice Gabriel Kolawole, in his minority decision, deviated from the majority ruling by ordering the case to be transferred to the Chief Judge of Kano State for reassignment to another judge, rather than striking it out entirely.
Meanwhile, in a separate ruling, the appellate court ordered a fresh hearing of the suit the embattled 15th Emir, Bayero, filed to challenge the decision of Gov. Yusuf to unseat him.
The court held that evidence before it established that Bayero was not accorded fair hearing by the Kano State High Court which it said conducted shoddy proceedings against him.
Justice Mohammed Mustapha, in delivering the lead judgement, observed that the proceeding was fundamentally flawed as Bayero was not served with a hearing notice, thereby denying him the opportunity to present his case.
Mustapha emphasized that all courts must uphold justice by providing equal opportunities to all parties, and declared that the proceeding against Bayero was a gross miscarriage of justice due to its fundamentally unfair conduct.
As a result, the appellate court remitted his case back to the Chief Judge of the Kano State High Court to be reassigned to another judge for expeditious determination.
Persecondnews reports that Kano has erupted in jubilation following the Appeal Court judgment in favour of Emir Sanusi.
In a video shared online, Kano residents were seen on the streets jubilating immediately after the judgment.
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