Yobe North : Bashir Machina fumes as APC submits Lawan’s name

• Says I’ll seek redress in the court.
• Who is Bashir Machina?

The name of the All Progressive Congress Yobe North senatorial candidate, Bashir Machina, has been replaced with that of the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, as seen on the list of Yobe senatorial candidates sent from the party to the Independent National Electoral Commission.

According to the list to submitted to NEC on Friday, the name of Machina was missing.

The name on the list included Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam as the APC candidate for Yobe East, Senator Ahmed Lawan as the candidate for Yobe North, and Senator Mohammed Bomai for Yobe South.

Machina won the Yobe North Senatorial candidate and has consistently said that he would not step down for Lawan and recently wrote the party’s chairman, Adamu Abdullahi, to reiterate his decision.

There have been online reports that Lawan who lost his presidential bid to Bola Tinubu was seeking a return ticket to the Senate and the duo have been battling for Machina’s senatorial ticket.

I’m still running’

Meanwhile, the Yobe North senatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bashir Machina, has said that he hasn’t stepped down for anyone.

Machina stated that his name must have been illegally removed from the list of senatorial candidates in his state.

Machina who spoke to journalists at a press briefing on Friday night said he would seek redress from the National Working Committee of the party for such illegal and undemocratic move.

He said, “As you all know, I am the APC senatorial candidate of Yobe Senatorial District. I scored 289 votes from an election which was held free, fair, peaceful and harmoniously

“Going by the guidelines of the senatorial or National Assembly, primary elections for 2023 general election were held according to the Electoral Act. Ballots were cast transparently and openly. On the day of the primary elections as scheduled, I emerged the winner. We submitted the results to the national headquarters of my party, the APC.

“Ironically, this evening, I heard from credible sources that my name was misrepresented. My name was removed from the list sent by the party to the Independent National Electoral Commission. I don’t know whether erroneously or deliberately so.

“For the avoidance of doubt, I remain the senatorial candidate of Yobe North senatorial district duly elected on the platform of the APC.

“I did not withdraw for anybody and will not withdraw because that is as a matter of right. Removing my name; I consider is very undemocratic, illegal and of course inhuman.”

Machina said he would check with the party and if true, he would seek redress in the court.

He added, “I will check; I will take measures first by reminding and appealing to my party. If this action is truly done erroneously, it should be corrected. And if it is deliberate, we are actually seeking for redress from the National Working Committee of our party under the leadership of Senator Abdullahi Adamu.”

Who is Bashir Machina?

Hon. Bashir Sheriff Machina is the immediate past chairman of the Governing Board of the Nigeria Shippers Council (NSC).

Hon. Sheriff, a popular name in the political sphere in Yobe, is an experienced grassroots politician who rose to the limelight in the 1990s and set history as the first and only youth in his 20s to be voted into the House of Representatives, representing Karasuwa, Nguru, Machina, Yusufari federal constituency on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

At 26, Bashir, he was appointed to serve as sub-committee chairman of the House Committee on Fertiliser Procurement and Distribution.

With the formation of APC in 2014, Bashir served the party in various capacities such as chairman APC congress committee in Ogun.

Under the guidance and recommendation of Governor Mai Mala Buni, the then national secretary of the APC, now Governor of Yobe, and immediate past Chairman of the APC Extraordinary Convention Committee, Bashir was saddled with another responsibility as chairman of the APC National Assembly Elections Screening Committee in Ogun. Since 2014, Bashir has served the APC on different committees as a member, an assignment which makes his resumé the most impressive in APC national headquarters.

In 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him chairman Governing Board of the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), a position he held until March 2022