Having contested in the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a presidential aspirant and attempted to force his way in, Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, is now facing a bold Bashir Machina, who has refused all entreaties to step down and hand over the senatorial ticket to him.
Lawan was defeated at the primaries where the party’s National Leader, Bola Tinubu, emerged as the winner.
Now, Machina, who was the sole candidate for the Yobe North APC senatorial primaries, and who reports say was only going to hold on to the ticket in case Lawan lost has refused to step down so as to achieve his childhood dream of becoming a Senator.
Machina was meant to be something like a deus ex machina. But, he is rewriting the story instead.
Other reports say Lawan and associates of the APC national leaders are mounting pressure on Machina.
According to a report by Daily Nigerian, Lawan, working with the APC National Vice Chairman, North East, Mustapha Salihu, is trying to ‘forcefully take over’ the ticket from Machina.
“I don’t interfere with local party arrangement in states. Yobe has its own unique way of primaries, which is a general consensus.
“All aspirants who obtained the party’s nomination forms nationwide have filled the withdrawal forms, which is a clear consent to withdraw in case of any superior interest, and with the consent of the party stakeholders in the state.
“I’m aware that it is a national party policy for aspirants who lost the presidential ticket to return to their seats in the Senate. You can see Godswill Akpabio has already reclaimed his senatorial ticket,” Salihu said in his defense.
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.
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