Godswill Akpabio, president of the senate, has distanced himself from Monday’s Appeal Court sack of Senator Ishaku Elisha Abbo, senator representing Adamawa North, by the Court of Appeal, Abuja.
According to the former Akwa Ibom State governor, it was uncharitable for Abbo to pour his frustrations on him.
Recall that the Appeal Court had on Monday sacked Abbo of the All Progressives Congress, and declared Amos Yohanna of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the duly elected senator for Adamawa North Senatorial District.
However, Abbo called a press conference on Monday in Abuja where he alleged that he was removed from office by the court because he did not support Godswill Akpabio’s senate presidency bid.
The sacked senator said four other senators, including the senator representing Abia South, Orji Uzor Kalu, would be removed from office because they did not support Akpabio in June.
“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”, Abbo said.
Reacting to Abbo’s claim, spokesperson for Akpabio, Eseme Eyiboh, said: “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”, he said.
Eyiboh added that the senate president does not harbour any ill will against any of the senators and he has since moved on from the election that brought him into office as president.
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