The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has recognised Mr. Basir Machina as the winner of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) primary for Yobe North Senatorial District ticket, ditching Senate President Ahmad Lawan.
If the INEC position stands, it would be an end to the 24 years glorious career of Dr. Ahmed Lawan, who has been in the National Assembly since 1999. He was in the House of Representatives, climbing up to the Senate, before becoming Senate President and Chairman of the National Assembly in 2019.
Former Niger Delta Minister, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and sitting Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, also lost their claims to senatorial candidacy as their names did not appear on INEC’s published list on Friday.
Former Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Udom Ekpoudom (rtd), was recognised instead of Akpabio, but it was not clear who got the Ebonyi South Senatorial District seat instead of Umahi.
But the controversy widens as the ruling party says it recognises Lawan and not Machina. Party National Chairmam, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, is claiming in a letter to INEC that the Senate President was elected at a secret primary election. No one, except Adamu, witnessed the primary, sources in the party said.
Dr. Ahmad Lawan and Dave Umahi, it would be recalled, were two of the presidential aspirants that lost to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the APC Presidential primary. Akpabio had stepped down for Tinubu at the primary.
The Yobe State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ahmed Makama, in a statement, in Damaturu, said, “The senatorial primaries for Yobe North district was held at the Government House, Gashua, in Bade Council of the state.”
According to him on Thursday, security agencies and electoral officers from the senatorial district assisted the Commission in conducting hitch-free primary elections adding that Alhaji Danjuma Isa Munga conducted the election.
The senatorial primaries report, also indicated, Lawan Modu Sheriff led the planning committee conduct the election on May 28, 2022 to declare Machina, the senatorial candidate.
Meanwhile, the National Electoral Commissioner for information and Voter Education, Mr Festus Okoye, said the Commission is not under obligation to publish the names of candidates submitted by political parties if there are questions over the validity of primaries featuring such candidates.
Said Okoye on Friday, “If you look at section 29(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, section 29 says ‘every political party shall not later than 180 days before the date appointed for a general election under this Act, submit to the commission in the prescribed forms, the list of the candidates it proposes to support at the election, who must have emerged from valid primaries conducted by the political parties.
“The commission does not submit the list of candidates. It is the political parties themselves that has been given the locus to submit this particular list and in this case, there is no personal interference between the commission and the political parties.
“We open the portal — what we called ‘candidate nomination portal’ — and we give an access code to the national chairman of each of the political parties that conducted primaries with which they upload the list and personal particulars of their nominated candidates.
“So, if a political party has uploaded the list and personal particulars of a candidate that did not emerge from valid party primary, INEC is not under a constitutional and legal obligation to publish the particulars of such a candidate.”