Incumbent senate president, Mr. Lawan Ahmad will not be on the ballot for the senatorial seat of Yobe north as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has confirmed Mr. Bashir Machina as candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the zone.
Machina won the primary organised by the party in May.
However, there were speculations that he was being asked to step down for Lawan, who currently represents the district but was contesting for the presidency at the time of the primary.
However, Machina had insisted that he would not withdraw for Lawan — the senate president had contested the APC presidential ticket but lost.
Amid the controversy, the APC submitted Lawan’s name to INEC as its senatorial candidate for Yobe north with the national chairman of the party, Mr. Abdullahi Adamu, contending that the senate president contested a senatorial primary organised by the party.
Adamu also threatened to sanction Machina for his comments on the party’s senatorial ticket for the district.
However, on Friday, INEC report surfaced online, in which Machina was confirmed as having won the APC senatorial primary for Yobe north after he polled 289 votes unopposed.
The document was signed and stamped with the date, June 23, 2022.
Spokesman for the INEC chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, confirmed that the document was from the commission.
“It’s our document,” he told TheCable in an interview.
The document stated that the primary, which held on May 28, was monitored by INEC officials and security agents and was done via open-secret ballot.
