Bashir Sheriff Machina, the governing All Progressives Congress candidate for Yobe North, has eventually ended the chance of Senate President Ahmad Lawan returning to the Senate as the Court of Appeal in Abuja upheld Machina’s senatorial candidacy.
On Monday, the Appeal Court unanimously upheld the earlier ruling of the Federal High Court, Damaturu, which found Machina to be the authentic APC senatorial candidate for Yobe North.
The ruling party’s plea was dismissed by the court as meritless, and Machina was given N1 million.
The Court’s President, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, who issued the decision, stated that the lower court was correct when it certified the May 28th APC senatorial primary contest that produced Machina because it was fair.
Machina was proclaimed the party’s senatorial candidate for Yobe North by a Federal High Court in Damaturu, Yobe State, in June, after winning a legal primary election on May 28, 2022.
Though Lawan first accepted the verdict and publicly stated his intention not to appeal, he later reversed his stance and quietly financed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
Recall that Lawan, the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, and some top presidential officials were working around the clock to overturn the lower court’s ruling on Machina by using President Muhammadu Buhari’s name to scare the panel’s Justices.
“Lawan has also been putting strong pressure on Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni to reach out to his Plateau State counterpart, Simon Lalong, who played a critical role in Monica’s emergence as President of the Court of Appeal,” a top source told SaharaReporters.
You can read more of such stories at Credible News.
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Lawan was reportedly said to have requested the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Opeyemi Bamidele, to damage the Judiciary’s budget if the Justices refused to do his bidding on Machina.
Machina won the APC’s primary election in May 2022, but Lawan chose to run in the APC’s presidential primary election in June.
However, Machina was asked to resign for Lawan, but he refused, stating that he would not resign for the Senate President.
In the midst of the controversy, the APC nominated the Senate President as its senatorial candidate for Yobe North to INEC.
Machina, enraged by the development, went to court to demand restitution. Machina specifically sought the court in his action to proclaim him the APC’s validly elected senatorial candidate for the 2023 election.
On June 9, 2022, Justice Aminu declared the parallel primary election that produced Lawan null and void.
As a result, the trial judge directed the APC to send Machina’s name to INEC as the legitimate victor of the May primary.
You can read more of such stories at Credible News and The Cheer News
