Yobe North Senatorial District: TMG expresses concerns over INEC’s role in Lawan, Machina’s case

The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has expressed concerns over the position of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the outcome of the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election for the Yobe North Senatorial seat.

The group, on Wednesday, accused the commission of conniving with the APC to rob Bashir Machina, legitimately elected candidate for the seat, in favour of the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.

Mr Machina emerged the winner of the Yobe North Senatorial District primary election supervised by INEC officials earlier in the year. The senate president did not participate in the primary.

At the time the exercise was held, Mr Lawan was pursuing his presidential ambition but lost to former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu.

Rather than submit the name of the elected candidate, the name of the senate president was submitted to the commission by the APC, a move that led to the deliberate omission of their names from the published particulars of candidates late June.

To clarify the brewing controversy around the seat, INEC, on at least two different occasions, said it rejected the senate president’s name because he had not been validly nominated for the senatorial seat.

The commission, however, urged Messrs Lawan and Machina to resolve their issues internally or seek redress in court.

Against this backdrop, the TMG, in a statement signed by its chairman, Auwal Musa, questioned an affidavit before the Federal High Court in Yobe, saying it is in disobedience to the Electoral Act.

The group did not, however, disclose the content of the affidavit and who filed it.

“Just as we are worried by the cross-carpet impunity in some political parties that deliberately reversed victories or allowed dubious re-runs in favour of some candidates who had contested and lost their primaries under separate seats, we find the tactical pursuit of injustice and impunity through judicial institution displayed in an Affidavit dated August 11, 2022, filed before the Federal High Court in Damaturu, Yobe state, as tantamount to probable disobedience to the sanity and sanctity of the provisions of Electoral Act and betray of public trust,” Mr Musa noted.

He accused the INEC of having a role to play in the latest development and thereby questioned its readiness to deliver free, fair and credible elections in the 2023 general elections.

“We observed with serious condemnation, the deliberately created condition by the Electoral Body to upturn the outcome and victory of a democratically recognized candidate in favour of an individual, who qualifies neither within the context of Electoral Law nor as a documented contestant in the senatorial primary.

“We, therefore, call on INEC to maintain absolute neutrality and respect for the rule of law in its activities at all levels, to demonstrate competence and trustworthiness to secure the integrity and public trust in the 2023 general elections,” he further said.

The TMG boss, in the 10- paragraph statement did not explicitly define the exact role of the electoral body in the legal tussle between Messrs Lawan and Machina.

Calls placed to the INEC spokesperson, Festus Okoye, by PREMIUM TIMES to clarify the commission’s position, were not answered.