President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan
The Supreme Court has affirmed Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial candidate for Yobe North. In a judgment delivered on Monday, the apex court allowed the APC’s appeal against Bashir Machina’s candidature. The Court had previously fixed February 6 for a final judgment in the protracted legal battle.
Three of the five‑member panel concurred with the APC’s position that the trial‑court suit should not have been commenced by an originating summons because it contained allegations of fraud. In the lead judgment, Justice Centus Nweze criticized Bashir Machina’s approach in filing the suit in the Federal High Court, Damaturu division, by way of an originating summons and without oral evidence to substantiate the fraud allegations. Nweze noted, “The bedrock of the suit shows that there were allegations of fraudulent practices against the appellants. The first respondent accused the APC of fraudulently substituting his name with that of Lawan. Where there is an allegation of fraud, it should not be commenced by an originating summons. There was a need to call witnesses to prove allegations of fraud.”
The majority also set aside the decision of the Appeal Court, Gombe Division, which had affirmed the trial court’s ruling that declared Machina the senatorial candidate for Yobe North. In a dissenting opinion, Justices Emmanuel Agim and Adamu Jauro held that Lawan never participated in the APC primary held on 28 May, having withdrawn voluntarily to contest the presidential primary on 8 June 2022. The minority view argued that the subsequent primary on 9 June 2022, in which Lawan emerged as the winner, breached Section 84(5) of the Electoral Act because the APC had not cancelled the May 28 primary before organizing a new one.
During the party’s May 2022 primary, Machina was the unopposed winner, while Lawan lost the party’s presidential ticket to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Machina later claimed that the Senate President and other forces were attempting to wrest the ticket from him. Amid the controversy, the APC submitted Lawan’s name to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) as its candidate, leaving INEC with no option but to leave the senatorial district seat vacant when it released the national list of candidates. Machina sued both his party and INEC, seeking a declaration that he was the authentic senatorial candidate. In September 2022, a Federal High Court in Damaturu declared him the winner and ordered the APC and INEC to recognize him as the candidate. An appeal court in Abuja subsequently affirmed Machina’s status as the APC’s Yobe North senatorial candidate.
After losing at both lower courts, the ruling party appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the May 28 primary that produced Machina violated the 2022 Electoral Act. Party counsel Sepiribo Peters contended that Danjuma Manga, who conducted the May primary, was not nominated by the National Working Committee (NWC) and that the APC had cancelled that primary due to observed irregularities. He asserted that the June 9 primary, organized by the APC NWC, legitimately produced Lawan as the party’s authentic candidate. Machina’s lawyer, Sarafa Yusuf, prayed for dismissal of the appeal on the grounds that the Senate President had not challenged the suits at the trial and lower‑court levels.
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