NEWS: The Supreme Court has confirmed that Lawan is the legitimate candidate for Yobe North.
The Gombe Division ruling of the Appeal Court was likewise overturned by the Apex Court in the majority decision.
Ahmed Lawan has been recognized by the Supreme Court as the legitimate candidate for the Yobe North Senatorial District.
In the main decision, Justice Centus Nweze criticized Bashir Machina’s strategy for starting the lawsuit at the Federal High Court Damaturu division through an originating summons and without providing oral evidence to support fraud accusations.
In the majority ruling, the Supreme Court also overturned the Gombe Division of the Appeal Court’s decision, which had upheld the trial court’s designation of Machina as the Senatorial Candidate for Yobe North.
However, the Supreme Court stated in a decision by Justices Emmanuel Agim and Adamu Jauro that Ahmad Lawan never took part in the APC primary on May 28 because he withdrew voluntarily to compete in the presidential primary on June 8, 2022.
The minority opinion stated that because the APC did not cancel the primary held on May 28 before holding a new one, the conduct of the primary on June 9, 2022, in which Lawan won, violated Section 84(5) of the Electoral Act.
The Federal High Court’s verdicts in Yobe and the Court of Appeal’s rulings in Abuja, according to Justice Centus Nweze, who read the lead judgment, were erroneous and ought to be overturned.
According to the charges of fraud made against the APC in the transmission of Mr. Lawan’s name to INEC, he said, Mr. Machina should have started his lawsuit through a writ of summons.
However, the majority decision was rejected by Adamu Jauro and Emmanuel Agim, two additional Supreme Court panelists.
Justice Adamu Jauro stated in the lead dissenting opinion that the APC’s “appeal is devoid of merit.” He criticized a N3 million fine imposed on the APC in Mr. Machina’s favor.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Emmanuel Agim claims that the 9 June APC primary election that resulted in Mr. Lawal was a fraudulent process.
He pointed out that the Senate President was automatically disqualified from the National Assembly election when Mr. Lawan withdrew from the candidacy for the Yobe North Senatorial District on May 12 in order to run for the APC presidential ticket.
Mr. Agim adds that the supposed primary election, which was place on June 9, 2022, was a sham because INEC did not oversee it.
The APC had contested Bashir Machina’s selection as the party’s nominee for the Yobe North Senatorial District.
The party argued that the legitimate senatorial candidate for Yobe North in the upcoming general election was Ahmad Lawan, the president of the Nigerian Senate.
At the most recent session of the appeal, the party’s attorney, Sepiribo Peters, contended that the primary election, which took place on May 28, 2018, and produced Machina, violated the Electoral Act 2022.
Peters argued that the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party did not nominate one Danjuma Manga to conduct the aforementioned primary election.
He testified before the court that the APC called off the primary election due to anomalies that were noticed during the process.
He said that the APC NWC conducted the other primary on June 9 and selected Lawan as the legitimate candidate for the party.
The Senate President did not contest the lawsuits at either the trial or lower courts, according to Machina’s attorney Sarafa Yusuf, who urged the Supreme Court to reject the appeal for lack of merit.
Additionally, he noted that Manga, who oversaw the primary election in which Machina triumphed, was a member of the committee established by the NWC to oversee the process.
The APC had petitioned the Court of Appeal in Abuja to overturn the decision of the lower court designating Machina as the party’s candidate for Yobe North, but Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, the panel’s president, ruled that the appeal was an abuse of the legal system.
