The Supreme Court of Nigeria has affirmed the candidacy of Ahmad Lawan, the senate president, as the authentic senatorial candidate for Yobe North.
The apex Court, in a lead judgement on Monday, set aside the decision of the court of appeal in Gombe Division, which affirmed the decision of the trial court that declared Machina the Senatorial Candidate for Yobe North.
The court held that the judgement of the two courts must be set as side as it was perverse.
Backstory
Mr Lawan had contested in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries, which he lost to Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
After losing out, he resulted in picking the senatorial tickets of the party for the Yobe North. However, Bashir Machina had already emerged as a candidate after participating in the primaries, which INEC officials supervised on May 28.
On June 9, APC held another primary election in which Mr Lawan emerged as the winner. Subsequently, the party forwarded the name of Lawan to INEC as the party’s candidate.
INEC, in turn, refused to recognise Mr Lawan as the candidate, saying the APC currently has no senatorial candidate for Yobe north.
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Machina then approached the court, praying to declare that he is the authentic senatorial candidate of the APC for the 2023 election.
In her judgement, the presiding judge ordered APC and INEC to recognise and forward Mr Machina’s name as the senatorial candidate.
Though Mr Lawan had earlier released a statement saying he was not going to challenge the lower court’s judgement, the APC, dissatisfied by the court’s judgement, approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja seeking to nullify the judgement.
The APC argued that Mr Ahmed was the authentic candidate as the party had cancelled the primary poll, which produced Mr Machina, because of the irregularities observed during the exercise.
They further argued that the second primary held on June 9, conducted by the APC National Working Committee, produced Lawan as the party’s authentic candidate.
However, the President of the appellate Court, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, who led the panel, held that the appeal was an abuse of the court process.
The panel affirmed Mr Machina as the party’s valid candidate for the senatorial district.
The APC approached the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the judgement of the other courts.
They maintained that Mr Lawan is the authentic senatorial candidate for the Yobe North Senatorial District for the forthcoming general election.
Court`s decision
On Monday, the Supreme Court, in its ruling, declared Mr Lawan as the authentic candidate for the APC Yobe North Senatorial District.
While three out of the five-member panel of justices held that the decisions of the Federal High Court in Yobe and the Court of Appeal in Abuja “were perverse and must be set aside, the other two Justices, Adamu Jauro and Emmanuel Agim, disagreed with the majority judgement.
Mr Jauro held that the APC “appeal is devoid of merit.” Consequently, He slammed a 3 million naira fine against the APC in favour of Mr Machina.
Justice Agim said the purported primary election held on 9 June 2022 was a “ruse” as INEC did not monitor it.
He noted that the senate president was disqualified already when he withdrew from the senatorial race to vie for the presidential office.
