These are sad times for Senator Elisha Abbo as the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Monday voided his election. Senator Abbo is representing Adamawa North at the National Assembly under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) .
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared him winner of the February 25, 2023 parliamentary election.
Only a month ago the same Court of Appeal in Abuja slammed N50 million in damages against him following his appeal in the 2019 sex toy scandal. A High Court of Federal Capital Territory had ordered the lawmaker to pay damages over the incident that occurred in 2019 but he went on appeal and lost.
When INEC declared him winner of the February elections, Amos Yohanna, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate rejected the result and took the matter to court but the tribunal dismissed his petition for lack of merit.
Yohanna, through his counsel Johnson Usman (SAN), headed for the Appeal Court.
After listening to arguments from the parties involved, the Court of Appeal agreed with Usman that according to Section 137 of the Electoral Act, 2022, the results tendered clearly showed that there was no compliance with the Electoral Act.
The court went on to deduct the invalid votes from the parties and it showed that Yohanna and PDP won the election via majority of lawful votes.
Justice C.E. Nwosu-Iheme, who headed the three-member panel, ordered INEC to issue a Certificate of Return to Yohanna as validly elected lawmaker for the senatorial district.
