The All Progressives Congress, APC, Senatorial candidate for Yobe North, Bashir Machina, has disclosed plans to take legal action once his name is supplanted in the list the party submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
DAILY NIGERIAN reports that Mr Machina had been at loggerheads with the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who was working underground to retain his seat after losing the party’s presidential primary election.
June 17 is the deadline set by the INEC for all political parties to submit their candidates, and unconfirmed reports claim that Mr Machina’s name was replaced with Mr Lawan’s.
Addressing a press conference on Friday in Abuja, Mr Machina said he heard from reliable sources that his name was removed from the list submitted to the electoral umpire.
He said: “This evening, we heard from credible sources that names were submitted by the National Headquarters of my party, the APC, to INEC, and that my name was found to be misrepresented either erroneously or deliberately. My name is not in the list of the names that were said to be presented to INEC.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I remain the APC candidate of the Yobe North Senatorial District. I did not withdraw for anybody and will not withdraw because, as a matter of right, the mandate was given to me by members of our great party. So, I consider removing my name surreptitiously as undemocratic, illegal and inhuman.”
Mr Machina, therefore, called on the party’s National Working Committee to correct the anomaly if at all there was one.
“I will take action by appealing to my party that this action is erroneously done, it should be corrected, and if it is deliberately done, we are actually seeking redress from the National Working Committee of our party under the able leadership of Senator Abdullahi Adamu.
“We will exploit and explore all the necessary channels within our party, as provided by our guidelines. And in the event of the contrary, as Nigerian citizens we will have no choice but to resort to court action,” Mr Machina declared.
