Lawan loses as Court declares Machina APC Yobe North candidate

The Federal High Court sitting in Damaturu has ordered both the All Progressives Congress(APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to recognise Bashir Machina as the senatorial candidate for Yobe North.

Machina on 22/06/2022 approached the court seeking his declaration as the winner of the primary on 28/05/2022 after he realised APC substituted his name with that of Senate President Ahmed Lawan.

Counsel to Lawan, who is the second defendant, Ahmed Raji SAN  prayed the court to strike out the case for lack of jurisdiction.

Yellow Page mobile

The learned silk also submitted that the case was statute-barred, stressing that it was filled out of the constitutional 14 days required by law.

But Ibrahim Bawa, SAN, counsel to Bashir Machina challenged his opponent to produce anybody that witness the purported primary elections that brought Ahmed Lawan as the candidate of the party.

In an almost two- hour judgement, Justice Aminu took time to deal with the preliminary issues, which include the challenge of the jurisdiction of the court on the matter, the objection that the case is statute-barred, the locus standi of the plaintiff and whether there was a cause of action by the plaintiff.

After citing relevant sections of the law, all the preliminary objections were resolved in favour of the plaintiff.

She pronounced the objections as faulty, misleading and cannot rob the court off its function of entertaining the substantive matter.

“In the final analysis, the conditions for the validity of primary elections were fulfilled in the election of May 28, 2022, which produced the plaintiff. The phantom election of June 9 2022 which produced the second defendant is hereby declared invalid in view of the outline provision of the law of the very primary election.

“Consequently, the plaintiff has hereby declared the validly elected candidate of the first defendant of the Yobe North senatorial candidate of the first defendant conducted on 28/05/2022 for the 2023 general election.

“The first defendant is hereby ordered to prepare the name and details of the plaintiff to the third defendant as its rightful candidate. This is my decision.”

Counsel to Lawan, Wale Balogun told journalists that he will consult with his client before taking the next move.

(Daily Trust)