PREMIUM TIMES
The Supreme Court on Monday declared Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the authentic candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Yobe North Senatorial District for the 25 February general election.
The court made the declaration in a three-against-two split judgement of its five-member panel. The panel was led by Centus Nweze.
The majority judgement 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, Mr Nweze said Mr Machina ought to have commenced his suit by a writ of summons going by the allegations of fraud levelled against the APC in transmitting Mr Lawan’s name to INEC.
But, two other members of the Supreme Court panel, Adamu Jauro and Emmanuel Agim disagreed with the majority judgement.
In the lead dissenting judgement, Mr Jauro held that the APC “appeal is devoid of merit.” He slammed N3 million fine against the APC in favour of Mr Machina.
Mr Agim while reading his dissenting view, said APC’s primary election held on 9 June which produced Mr Lawan was an “illegal contraption”.
