Follow Us on Google
The Supreme Court yesterday nullified the election of a member of the House of Representatives, Abdulkadir Modibbo.
The election of Modibbo, a member of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) was earlier affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Yola.
But the Supreme Court quashed it, and upheld an earlier decision of a Federal High Court which handed victory to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The tussle was over the Yola South, Yola North and Girei Federal Constituency of Adamawa State.
The apex court faulted the decision by the Appeallate court which had ceded the office to another candidate of the APC, Mustapha Usman.
At the High court, the applicants had said that Modibbo did not qualify to be nominated as a candidate for the APC because he was yet to complete his National Youth Service Corp and was still a serving NYSC member.
The applicants also provided documents indicating that Modibbo falsified some information submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission ahead of his election.
The high court presided by Justice Abdulaziz Anka had ruled that the applicants proved beyond reasonable doubt that Modibbo should not have been fielded as a valid candidate for the party.
The court decided that the candidate with the next highest number during the main election should be made the winner.
The PDP candidate, Jafar Suleiman, had emerged second with 48, 476 votes while Modibbo polled 80, 48,476 votes.
Dissatisfied with the division, Mr Usman who emerged runner-up at the APC primary appealed the high court decision. The appeal court ordered Usman to replace Modibbo.
Aggrieved by the Appellate court decision, Modibbo took the matter to the Supreme Court.
