From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Supreme Court in a split decision of three to two declared Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the authentic candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Yobe North Senatorial District for the forthcoming general election.
The majority judgment of the five-member panel of the apex court delivered by Justice Centus Nweze voided and set aside the decisions of the Federal High Court and that of the Court of Appeal, which affirmed Bashir Machina as the candidate who won the May 28, 2022 primary of the party.
Regardless, two other members of the Supreme Court panel, Justices Adamu Jauro and Emmanuel Agim disagreed with their brother Justices in their dissenting judgment.
Jauro held that the APC’s “appeal is devoid of merit, ” and consequently slammed a N3 million fine against the APC in favour of Mr Machina.
Justice Agim in his dissenting judgment held that the APC’s primary election held on June 9, which produced Mr Lawan was an “illegal contraption”.
He noted that Lawan’s withdrawal from the Yobe North Senatorial District race on May 12, to contest for the APC presidential ticket, automatically disqualified him from the National Assembly election.
Justice Agim further said the purported primary election held on 9 June 2022, was a “ruse” as it was not monitored by INEC.
Justices Jauro and Agim insisted that APC conducted an unlawful primary election because the May 28 primary election was not cancelled before that of June 9, 2022, which purportedly produced Lawan was illegal, unlawful and a breach of section 285 of the 1999 Constitution.
They held that Lawan had in an undisputed letter to APC voluntarily withdrawn his participation in the primary election for the Presidential election.
They contended that INEC was specific that it witnessed the May 28 primary election that produced Machina but did not witness that of June 9, 2022, because there was no notification from APC to that effect.
They dismissed the appeal by the APC for being incompetent and unmeritorious.
The majority judgment 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 APC had challenged the judgements of the lower courts which affirmed Bashir Machina as the candidate of Yobe North Senatorial District for the election.
It urged the Supreme Court to nullify the two previous verdicts and legitimise APC’s National Working Committee’s forwarding of Mr Lawan’s name to INEC as flagbearer for the poll.
In the majority decision, Justice Nweze said Machina ought to have commenced his suit by a writ of summons going by the allegations of fraud levelled against the APC in transmitting Lawan’s name to INEC.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja in November last year affirmed Mr Lawan’s rival, Mr Machina, as the party’s valid candidate for the senatorial district.
But while the Senate President decided not to pursue the case further at the Supreme Court, the APC took on the mantle of appealing against the Court of Appeal’s judgement challenging the nomination of Mr Machina as the party’s candidate for the senatorial district.
The APC insisted that Lawan is the authentic senatorial candidate for the Yobe North Senatorial District for the forthcoming general election.