By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The dream of incumbent Senate President, Ahmad Lawan of returning to the Red Chambers in 2023 to represent the people of Yobe North has finally kissed the dust, as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has affirmed Bashir Machina as the winner of the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC) primary for the seat.
Machina and Lawan who had contested for the APC presidential primary had been at loggerheads over the senatorial seat, after Lawan lost the APC presidential primary to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Machina, according to a certified true copy of INEC’s report from May 28, 2022, won the election with 289 votes out of 300 delegates.
But the APC leadership under Abdullahi Adamu had submitted the name of the Senate President as candidate of the senatorial district for the election.
The Commission, on June 23, 2022, certified the document and did not mention Lawan, who has been jostling to return to the Senate on the APC ticket.
Lawan had been allegedly listed as the candidate of the APC for Yobe North senatorial election slated for February 2023, with reports that a primary had been held clandestinely to produce Lawan as candidate.
This had irked Machina and his supporters who accused APC of being anti-democratic.
INEC had advised aggrieved aspirants to obtain Certified True Copy (CTC) of the election result from the commission.
However, on Friday, Machina stormed the INEC office in Yobe State to obtainthe CTC of the primary election, which the commission monitored.
