After legal battles from Federal to Appeal Courts, eventually, Supreme Court on Monday affirmed the nomination of Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Yobe North Senatorial District for the forthcoming election.
In the lead majority judgment, Justice Centus Nweze held that Lawan’s major challenger, Bashir Machina, was wrong to have commenced his suit at the trial court via an originating summons in view of his allegations that the APC acted fraudulently in submitting Lawan’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as its candidate.
The majority decision upheld the contention by the appellant (the APC) that Machina ought to have commenced the suit at the trial court via a writ of summons, as against an originating summons, since his raised contentious allegations of fraud.
“The bedrock of the suit shows that there were allegations of fraudulent practices against the appellant.
“That the 1st respondent (Machina) accused the APC of fraudulently substituting his name with that of Lawan.
“Where there is an allegation of fraud it should not be commenced by an originating summons. There was a need to call witnesses to prove allegations of fraud,” Justice Nweze said.
He held that the earlier decisions of the Federal High Court (Yobe) and the subsequent one Court of Appeal (Abuja), affirming Machina as the APC candidate for Yobe North “were perverse and must be set aside.”
The judge allowed the appeal and set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
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