The sacked senator traced his travails to the Senate president, whom he alleged, manipulated the appeal court to kick him out of office, and that four other senators are in line for a similar fate
The senator representing Adamawa north senatorial district, Elisha Ishaku Abbo, who was sacked by the Appeal Court on Monday, has claimed that President of the Senate, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, is the reason behind his removal from office.
Abbo said this is because he refused to support Akpabio’s bid to become Senate President but rather, backed Senator Abdulaziz Yari, Zamfara west.
Recall that on Monday, the Appeal Court in Abuja, voided the election of Abbo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and declared his rival, Amos Yohanna, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as winner of the February 25, national assembly elections.
Reacting to the court’s ruling during an interview with reporters on Monday, Abbo stated that four other senators including Senator Orji Uzor Kalu (APC, abia north) who worked against the emergence of Akpabio as Senate President had been targeted by the court to be unseated from the red chamber.
He said: “I heard it from a reliable source which I won’t call the name now that five senators will be removed from the senate. Those who did not stand with my brother, my elder brother, and my good colleague, distinguished Senate President Akpabio.
Those who did not vote for him, five of us are going and I am number one. Orji Uzor Kalu will go. They have pencilled five of us.
They told me that I am going because we did not support the emergence of my brother Akpabio in emerging as president of the senate. This is not democracy.
We have hope in the court, let us build the country, the international community is watching us.
You cannot withdraw a ground and the court of appeal restore a ground without the lawyer asking for that ground to be restored and voiding somebody’s election. This is a coup on democracy.
The court judgement is strange and the judiciary needs to please remain the last hope of the common man.”
He, however, urged his supporters and constituents to remain calm, assuring that he will recontest in the next elections.
But in a reaction, Akpabio’s spokesperson, Eseme Eyiboh, warned Abbo not to pour his frustrations on his principal, as he has already moved on from the election that won him the seat as Senate President.
A statement signed by Eyiboh and made available to the media on Tuesday, stressed that Akpabio harbours no enmity towards any of his colleagues.
“It is only a diseased and uninformed mind that will not believe that the outcome of any court proceeding is a function of the evaluation of facts and evidence within the province of the rule of law.
Democracy is founded in the rule of law, so for anybody to accuse one of the strong agents of democracy and governance in the mold of Senator Godswill Akpabio, such an individual must be a monument of self-pity and his swansong a discordant escape from reality,” the statement said.
