Again, court sacks Adamawa APC Rep-elect

A Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday sacked Abdulrauf Abdulkadir Modibbo, the elected House of Representatives member for Yola South, Yola North, and Girei Federal Constituency in Adamawa State.

Modibbo was disqualified for providing false information to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the February 2019 election.

Justice Inyang Ekwo ruled that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and INEC should recognize Mustapha Usman as the winner of the House of Representatives election in the constituency.

Usman was second in APC’s primary that held on October 7, 2018.

The court said Usman was able to establish that Modibbo forged his First School Leaving Certificate and participated in partisan politics while serving as a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) which violates Paragraph 9 of Section 4 of the NYSC Act.

Earlier in March, a Federal High Court in Yola had sacked Modibbo and ordered him to vacate the seat for the first runner-up of the election, Jafar Suleiman of the Peoples Democratic Party. The ruling was based on the grounds that the APC primary that produced Moddibbo was inconclusive.

Justice Abdulaziz Anka, who gave the ruling also ordered INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return issued to him and issue the certificate to Suleiman, who is the runner up of the Yola South, Yola North, and Girei Federal Constituency House of Representatives election.