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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The controversy surrounding the All Progressives Congress (APC) Yobe North Senatorial District ticket assumed another dimension on Friday, as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) confirmed Bashir Machina as the ruling party’s candidate.
Machina won the primary conducted on May 28, 2022, but the APC national leadership under Abdullahi Adamu submitted the name of Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, as the candidate of the senatorial district for the election.
However, it was gathered that he was being asked to step down for Lawan, who currently represents the district.
The decision angered Machina and his supporters who accused APC of being anti-democratic.
Machina also insisted that he would not withdraw for Lawan, saying the Senate President had contested the APC presidential ticket and lost.
Amid the controversy, the APC submitted Lawan’s name to INEC as its senatorial candidate for Yobe North, with Adamu saying the Senate President contested the senatorial primary organised by the party.
In an interview witb BBC, Adamu also asked Machina to be careful and mindful of his utterances.
But a Certified True Copy of the primary result surfaced online on Friday,confirming Machina the winner of the APC senatorial primary for Yobe North.
The result signed by INEC’s legal officer, Samuel Omale, and dated June 23, 2022, showed Machina polled 289 votes and was unopposed.
Speaking when he featured on a television programme, Okoye advised aggrieved aspirants to obtain Certified True Copy (CTC) of the election result from the commission.
According to the document, the primary, which held on May 28, was monitored by INEC officials and security agents and was done via open-secret ballot.
The result of the exercise was also said to have been “generally acccepted.”