The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, has asserted that the Electoral Act 2022 contains loopholes that allowed certain candidates to be imposed on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 elections. In a Thursday tweet, Sowore highlighted a specific loophole that enabled the court to declare Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the candidate for the Yobe North Senatorial District “in an election where he never participated in the primary.”
Reports indicate that on Monday the Supreme Court affirmed Lawan as the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial candidate for Yobe North. In a majority judgment, the apex court upheld the APC’s appeal against Bashir Machina’s candidature and declared Lawan the winner of the Yobe North senatorial candidacy over the May 29 poll winner, Machina.
Reacting to the decision, Sowore said, “I had a chance to tell Nigerian lawmakers the lacuna in the Electoral Act that got the Senate President, Lawan, declared a candidate in an election where he did not contest the primary.” In a video accompanying his tweet, recorded during a National Assembly public hearing on the Electoral Act 2022, he added, “I also seriously think that the Electoral Act has some lacuna that is being exploited by the judiciary. We are all aware that even though the portal for the electoral process has been closed, courts are still giving conflicting judgments regarding candidates in this election, including candidates that did not even participate in the primary and have been imposed on INEC as we speak. One of them is your (Senate) President here.”
Sowore continued, “An Electoral Act that also empowers INEC to be a major decision‑maker for political parties is not a democratic Electoral Act. I also want to say that the Senate should look directly into how to curb INEC’s power to deregister parties because that does not promote democracy at all.”
The APC’s victory for Lawan came after it dragged Machina to the apex court, insisting that Lawan—who did not contest the primary—was its “authentic candidate.” After the Supreme Court’s judgment, Lawan addressed journalists, praising the decision as evidence that “democracy is at work.” He said, “What happened was democracy at work and the courts gave their various judgments and, of course, the Supreme Court gave the final judgment. I want at this point to commend the Supreme Court and, of course, the judiciary generally for making this kind of judgment to strengthen our democracy because it is not only for politicians to work and strengthen democracy. All institutions have their roles to play. So I commend them.”
During the party’s primary on 8 May 2022, Machina emerged as the unopposed winner, while Lawan contested and lost the party’s presidential ticket to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Machina later claimed that the Senate President and other forces were trying to wrest the ticket from him. In the ensuing controversy, the APC submitted Lawan’s name to INEC as its candidate, leaving the electoral body with no choice but to leave the Yobe North senatorial slot empty when it released the nationwide 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, Yobe’s capital, declared Machina the winner and ordered the APC and INEC to recognize him as the candidate. An Appeal Court in Abuja later affirmed this ruling.
After losing at both lower courts, the APC appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the May 28 primary that produced Machina breached the Electoral Act 2022 because Danjuma Manga, who conducted that primary, was not nominated by the party’s National Working Committee (NWC). The party’s counsel, Sepiribo Peters, claimed the APC cancelled the primary due to observed irregularities and that a subsequent primary on 9 June, conducted by the NWC, produced Lawan as the authentic candidate.
Machina’s lawyer, Sarafa Yusuf, asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal on the grounds that the Senate President had not challenged the suits at the trial and lower‑court levels, arguing that the appeal lacked merit.
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