ABUJA— The Kano State Division of the Court of Appeal, on Friday, vacated the High Court order that nullified the reappointment of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as the 16th Emir of Kano.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, which delivered its judgement in Abuja, voided the June 20, 2024, decision of Justice Abubakar Liman of the Federal High Court, which invalidated the Kano State Emirates Council (Repeal) Law 2024 that facilitated Sanusi’s reappointment.
According to the appellate court, Justice Liman was bereft of the jurisdiction to nullify the steps the Kano State Government took pursuant to the 2024 Emirates Council Law.
It held that a fundamental rights enforcement suit that was filed by an aggrieved kingmaker in the state, Alhaji Aminu Babba Dan Agundi, which the high court judge relied upon to issue the order, was incompetent.
The appellant court 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.
It will be recalled 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.
Buoyed by the law, the governor, among other things, deposed the 15th Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, and also reversed the status of the emirs of Bichi, Rano, Gaya, and Karaye emirates to that of district heads, following the collapse of their emirates into Kano Emirate.
Likewise, governor Yusuf reappointed the 14th Emir of Kano, Sanusi II, who was deposed in 2020 by his predecessor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, who had also enacted the law that divided the Kano emirates into five.
However, dissatisfied with Sanusi’s reappointment as the head of the united emirates in Kano state, Alhaji Agundi, who was a kingmaker and the Sarkin Dawaki Babba under the divided emirates, approached the court and secured an order for the maintenance of status quo, so as to allow the deposed 15th Emir, Bayero, to remain on seat.
In his subsequent verdict on the matter, Justice Liman upheld Alhaji Agundi’s case and declared the actions taken by Governor Yusuf as null and void, a decision the appellate court faulted on Friday.
According to the appellate court panel led by Justice Mohammed Mustapha, though section 46(1) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, imbued the high court with the jurisdiction to entertain fundamental right enforcement cases, Alhaji Agundi suit did not fall within such category.
It held that the crux of the plaintiff’s suit was a chieftaincy related issue as he had contended that the action of the Kano State Government would affect his position as a kingmaker and also strip his place of its emirate status.
The appellate court held that the plaintiff ought to have initiated a civil action to ventilate his grievance rather than his decision to file the fundamental right enforcement suit.
Having declared that the suit was wrongly commenced and therefore robbed the court of the jurisdiction to entertain it, the appellate court held that the proper order was for the matter to be struck out for want of competence.
Even though a member of the panel, Justice Gabriel Kolawole, in his minority decision, agreed that Justice Liman acted without jurisdiction, however, instead of striking out the case, he ordered that it should be transferred and remitted to the Chief Judge of Kano state, to be heard by another judge.
Meanwhile, in another judgement, the appellate court ordered a fresh hearing of the suit the embattled 15th Emir, Bayero, filed to challenge the decision of governor Yusuf to unseat him.
The appellate 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 Mustapha, who delivered the lead judgement, noted that the said proceeding was conducted without the service of hearing notice on Bayero to enable him to present his own side of the case.
He held that all courts of law are bound to ensure justice for all parties by giving them equal opportunities, adding that the manner the proceeding was conduct against Bayero, amounted to a travesty of justice.
Consequently, 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.