A federal high court sitting in Abuja has sacked Abdulrauf Modibbo, winner of Yola south/Yola north/Girei federal constituency of Adamawa state in the 2019 general election.
According to NAN, Inyang Ekwo, the presiding judge, nullified Modibbo’s victory on Friday while delivering judgment in a suit filed by Mustapha Usman, Moddibo’s challenger in the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election of 2018.
Usman had accused his rival of not being eligible to contest the APC primary on the grounds of falsification of age.
He prayed the court to disqualify Modibbo and declare him the authentic APC candidate.
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Delivering the judgment, Ekwo held that Usman proved beyond reasonable doubt that Modibbo falsified his age in order to contest election.
The judge said the plaintiff proved that Modibbo submitted the forged certificates for the purpose of contesting the party’s primary.
He also held that Modibbo was a serving National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member when he contested the primary election, saying the action breached Section 4 of the NYSC Act 2004.
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“A person who is a lawbreaker cannot be a lawmaker, this illegality is one that cannot be wished away,” the judge held.
He declared that following Modibbo’s disqualification, Usman who polled the second highest votes in the primary election was the lawful winner.
The judge subsequently ordered the APC and INEC to immediately replace Modibbo’s name with that of Usman.
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