Yobe North: Bashir Machina Floors Senate President Ahmad Lawan At Appeal Court
The Court of Appeal in Abuja has affirmed Bashir Sheriff Machina as the authentic All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Yobe North Senatorial District of Yobe State in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
The court upheld the judgment of the Federal High Court sitting in Damaturu, the state capital, which held that the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, is not the APC candidate for Yobe North Senatorial District in next year’s election into the National Assembly.
The court had submitted that Mr Lawan did not participate in the legally recognised Senatorial primary election of the APC to select its candidate for Yobe North on May 28, 2022.
In the ruling on the appeal filed by Senator Ahmad Lawan, a three-member panel of the appellate court led by Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, held that the primary election conducted by the party on June 9, 2022, was invalid as it was in breach of the constitution.
The appellate court said that the law is settled as to the involvement of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in party primaries, which is to monitor, the primaries of 9th June were not monitored by the electoral commission.
The APC made a case at the Appeal Court for itself and its preferred candidate Ahmad Lawan but failed to make him a co-appellant.
Mr Lawan appeared in the case as the second respondent indicating that he and the APC were working at cross purposes while trying to achieve a goal.
“The appeal is unmeritorious as it fails in its entirety”, the court ruled, ordering the appellant (APC) to pay the sum of N1 million to the first respondent (Bashir Sheriff) as cost.
