Less than 47 days to the presidential and National Assembly elections, a Yola High Court on Tuesday sacked serving Senator Ishaku Abbo as the APC Senatorial candidate for Adamawa North senatorial district for the coming election.
Presided over by Justice Mohammed Danladi, the court sacked Abbo on the grounds that he had been expelled from the party by his ward in Mubi North local government area of Adamawa.
Danladi held that the Senator and APC were bound by the resolution of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Mubi North Local government chapter’s executive expelling him from the party on the 7th of October 2022.
The court also averred that Senator Abbo was not entitled to enjoy any rights or privileges accorded to APC members.
The Senator first came to limelight in 2019 when he was captured in a video beating a female attendant, Osimibibra Warmat, at a sex shop in Abuja.
He committed the offences in the presence of an armed policeman who, rather than protect the victim, arrested her.
The police later arraigned Abbo before a Magistrate’s Court in Zuba, Abuja on a charge of assault.
Despite video evidence of the incident, Abdullahi Ilelah, the Magistrate, upheld the no-case submission filed by the lawmaker and dismissed the case.
However, Warmate instituted a separate civil suit at a Federal High Court, Abuja and on September 28, Justice Samira Bature convicted Abbo and ordered him to pay N50 million as compensation to her.
Recall that the Mubi North Local Government Executive Committee of the party had on October 7, 2022, approved the expulsion of the Senator as recommended by the party’s disciplinary committee.
The court further restrained APC under which the Senator is seeking re-election from recognizing him as its candidate, saying that he could not validly be the candidate of the party in the forthcoming general election.
The court also restrained Abbo from parading himself as the candidate of the party in the Northern Senatorial District in the forthcoming general election.
Danladi held that the plaintiff’s counsel had proved his case beyond doubts, adding that the court was satisfied with the procedure followed by the party.
“The Senator was accorded the opportunity to defend himself but deliberately refused to so do.”
He said that the action of the plaintiffs in suing the Senator was not an internal affair of the party as claimed and that they had locus standi to institute the action against him since they were registered members of the party.
Two APC members — Abdullahi Suleiman and Yusha’u Usman of Kolere and Sabon Layi Wards in Mubi North — respectively sued the Senator and sought for an interpretation regarding his status in APC.
Reacting to the judgment, Counsel to the Plaintiffs, Mr Abubakar Ali, hailed the court’s ruling, saying the judgement would serve as a deterrent to erring members of the party who claimed to be above the party.
Counsel to the defendant, Mr E. O. Odo, said that he would communicate the decision of the court to his client (Senator Abbo) and that if he agreed, they would challenge the judgment at the Court of Appeal.