The national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Abdullahi Adamu, has said that delisting the name of Bashir Machina from the list of names submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is in order.
Mr Machina had won the party’s senatorial primary for the Yobe North, the district where Senate President Ahmad Lawan is representing at the Senate.
But the party substituted Mr Machina’s name with Mr Lawan’s after the latter lost his presidential aspiration to Bola Tinubu during the party’s national convention in Abuja.
Speaking with the BBC Hausa on Thursday, Mr Adamu said the party leadership violated no law in substituting Mr Machina’s name.
The APC had attached a ‘Letter of Withdrawal’ to the expression of interest and nomination forms which the party mandated every aspirant to sign.
But Mr Machina said he never signed the letter.
While advising Mr Machina to tread carefully, Mr Adamu said that his comments are becoming too ‘overbearing’.
He said: “Machina should be very careful. I will advise him to tread carefully, his comments are becoming too overbearing and I will advise him to be careful”.
“To the best of my knowledge as the national chairman, we didn’t violate any law in substituting his name.”
On the gale of defection rocking the party, Mr Adamu said he takes full responsibility for the crisis.
According to him, the defection incidents are not peculiar to the APC alone.
The APC chair however blamed the media for exaggerating the crisis.
Since the party primaries, the APC has lost some senators and House of Reps members to the opposition parties.
