A review of the personality of Senator Ishiaku Abbo – by Goodliffe Goodhead
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Senator Ishiaku Abbo is the Senator representing the people of Adamawa North Senatorial District in the Nigerian Senate.
After what many described as a “ political coup” in Adamawa State, where the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa-Ari, unilaterally announced the APC candidate in the election, Aisha Binani, winner of the election and the subsequent statement by the headquarters of the Independent National Election Commission annulling the announcement, as only results from 10 out of the 20 local governments were the rerun election was being held had been announced, and also the suspension of result collation in the state, Senator Ishiaku Abbo appeared on Channels Television on Monday, April 17, insisting that the electoral body’s proclamation was insignificant as backed by the electoral act.
According to him, the Electoral Act as amended in 2022 bars the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from declaring the collation of results in Adamawa state null and void.
“They cannot suspend collation. INEC cannot nullify an election that has been announced, they don’t have that power. Elections have been announced, it is out of their hands. The result has been announced by the REC. Section 65 does not operate in isolation, there is section 149. Section 149 of the Electoral Act of 2022 states that Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Act, any defect or error arising from any actions taken by an official of the Commission in relation to any notice, form, or document made or given or other things done by the official in pursuance of the provisions of the Constitution or of this Act, or any rules made thereunder remain valid, unless otherwise challenged and declared invalid by a competent court of law or tribunal.”
The Senator under the All Progressives Congress also insisted that it was futile to challenge an already announced result while accusing the opposition party in the state of electoral infractions.
“It has already been announced, you cannot review a result that they told us. They said the reason why they have not reviewed Fufore was that it was announced. Fufore elections were contentious, we prepared for a free and fair but PDP did not prepare for a free and fair election, they prepared to bypass the elections, they prepared to compromise some certain officials. We prepared for the elections and the elections went smoothly, with the introduction of BVAS, we all voted in line with the dictates of the electoral act and the INEC regulations.
Election was taken place, the election was collated. PDP sent someone when they discovered that we had 37,000 votes in favour of APC and went and snatched election results. The chairman of the local government sent someone and snatched election results and disappeared.”he said
And Senator Ishiaku Abbo is a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who is expected to have a better understanding of the laws of the National Assembly.
Who exactly is Senator Ishiaku Abbor?
Not much is known about his educational qualification, except that on February 9th 2004, Mr. Cliff Elisha Ishaku who ps also known asIshiaku Abbo, was reported to have taken the authorities of the Nigerian Naval Training College, Onne, Port Harcourt to court for allegedly denying him admission into the college on the grounds of his health status despite passing the recruitment test.
“In a legal action instituted on his behalf by the vice chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Abuja Chapter, Barrister Jude Okeke, at the Abuja Federal High Court, Ishaku is seeking among others, a declaration that his withdrawal from the School, by the Naval College and the Ministry of Defence on account of his testing positive to HIV virus is illegal, unlawful and breach of his fundamental right to personal dignity.”
In February, 2019, Mr. Cliff Elisha Ishiaku was elected Senator, representing the people of Adamawa North Senatorial District in the Nigerian Senate. Before the inauguration of the 9th Senate which Mr. Ishiaku was to be a member, a video surfaced in the social media on the 2nd of June, 2019, where he was caought assaulting a nursing mother in a sex toy shop in Abuja. In the CCTV video that was widely circulated on social media, Elisha Abbo is aided by a Nigeria Police Officer in molesting the helpless lady.
Elisha Abbo, descended on the woman after she pleaded with him not to physically assault the shopowner whom the senator had accused of insulting him. He said the shopowner called him a drunk.
PREMIUM TIMES had exclusively obtained the video of the assault, which occurred on May 11 — nearly three months after Mr Abbo became a senator-elect and a month before he was sworn-in on June 11.
The attack happened as an armed mobile police officer looked on, and instead made attempt to arrest the victim.
The assault was reported on May 14 at the Maitama Area Command Headquarters on Nile Street, but the police told the victim to go look for Mr Abbo’s telephone number or they would not be able to do anything about it, PREMIUM TIMES had reported.
Mr Abbo, then member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had entered the shop at about 6:00 p.m. on May 11, a Saturday. The senator walked in with three young women to purchase adult toys, PREMIUM TIMES reported.
But shortly after they began shopping for the toys, one of the three girls brought in by Mr Abbo started throwing up. She vomited multiple times, prompting the shopowner to remark that the woman should have vomited outside and not inside her shop, especially since she was not a child.
Mr Abbo, who was said to be agitated by the sudden illness of one of his girls, was said to have accused the shopowner of poisoning the store’s air conditioner.
The shopowner’s argument that if the air conditioner had been contaminated, others in the shop would have also taken ill further angered Mr Abbo, and the two began exchanging words over the matter.
In the first five minutes of the 10-minute video obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Abbo is seen sitting on a yellow power generator near the entrance of the shop. He could be heard within this time making calls and asking some people where they were and how close they were.
Just before the first half of the video, an armed police officer walked in. Mr Abbo explained to the officer in Hausa that the woman insulted him and that he had called the assistant inspector-general (AIG) over the matter, who then assured him that he would call the police commissioner to call the Maitama Area Command. He also said he was disappointed in the shopowner, with whom he said he had been friends for five years.
Mr Abbo, 41, said the police officer should take the shopowner away. The shop owner quickly called her father to inform him that Mr Abbo had called the police over the matter and that she was about to be taken away.
Mr Abbo asked the shopowner to stop the call because he was talking to her, a demand the woman refused to accede to. Another man could be seen coming from behind the police officer to snatch the shopowner’s phone from her.
Next, the shopowner’s friend who had been standing nearby tried to intervene by pleading with the second man to take things easy.
“Oga, please take it easy now,” she said.
Mr Abbo swiftly descended on the shopowner’s friend, saying she was “very stupid” and slapping her repeatedly, including directly on the eyes.
The senator then demanded that the two women should be taken to the police station. He repeatedly told the shopowner that he was disappointed in her for calling him a drunk and that he would have harmed her more and closed down the shop but for their friendship..
Mr. Ishiaku Abbo was said to have returned to the shop the following day to see whether a CCTV footage of the incident existed.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that Mr Abbo was told that the CCTV in the shop was not functioning. He was said to have been very worried about the incident, threatening to deal with them if the footage of his violence ever surface.
Tayo-diam Olumuyiwa Owolabi-Atobatele, had also claimed that the senator assaulted him October 14, 2014, after the gubernatorial election of former governor, Ayodele Fayose.
According to him, “I met him during the electioneering campaign of Former Gov. Of Ekiti state, Ayodele Fayose, while I was the official photojournalist to Fayose during the electioneering campaign and head of photojournalist to his deputy after the election.
“I moved with him immediately after the election to work with him in Osun state governorship campaign of Senator Iyiola Omisore, while I head his (sen. Elisha cliff Abbo) media team in july 2015”
. “I had a contract of #2.8million naira with him, to work as a media personnel to him, to cover all his movement for the election and for his campaign as senator, in Mubi North, under APC in 2015.
“On August 13, 2015, I traveled with him to Yola Adamawa State, from Abuja by air and we lodged at Lelewa hotel for weeks while campaigning for the primary election.
“We traveled from Adamawa to Mubi, Vintim muchala back to mubi and later to Yola after he lost the Senatorial ticket.
“In preparation for the inauguration of Former Governor of Ekiti state Gov. Fayose, in October 2016, I decided to come back to Ekiti in other to attend his inauguration being his official photojournalist during the campaign.
“On approaching Sen. Ishiaku of the contract agreement we had together, he refused to pay.
“Despite so many persuasion in other for him to just give me part of my money, he refused to attend to me.
“On the faithful day we wanted to travel together to Mubi for the last campaign, but Bokoharam invaded Mubi prior to the day we ought to have travel.
“Due to the invasion of Boko Haram I began to plead with him that I needed to leave the state.
“It was around 5pm that I have been waiting for him to attend to me, after series of text messages and calls, in which he refused to attend to me, I was force to go and seat at the doorstep of his room waiting for the time he would come out at Dansoho Hotel in Yola.
“As soon as he came out, I began to plead with him that I have to go, the next thing he said is that I was embarrassing him, he leaped on me and started beating and slapping me.
“To the extent of telling his orderly to put me inside the pickup. He told them to cock the gun at me that he will kill me and tell people am a member of Bokoharam.
“When I heard that statement I was shocked because I don’t know anybody there and I can’t speak their language fluently.
“No one could come to my rescue as everybody was just dumbfounded at the way he brutalised me and broke my ankle.
“I was begging him to just leave me and let me go that I will leave the money for him because of his action.
“That very night at around 2am. I was driven along quiet area telling his orderly that they should shoot me if I dear shout again.
“On that fateful night, one of his orderly begged that they should take me to Police station.
“I was driven to kaliwa police division at that the dead of the night.
“He broke my phone I couldn’t contact anybody he tore my cloth and naked me.
“That very night. On getting to kaliwa police station, I begged the IPO to please let me use his phone to talk to one of my family.
“That was how I called one of my brother that pleaded with the IPO to assist me out of the situation.
“The DPO came the following morning and I begged him to give me transport fare to go back to meet my family. Till date, he didn’t pay me the money.”
On December 27, Elisha Abbo was reported to have ordered the detention of a freelance journalist, Yau Saeed Mubi. over a publication on the absence of good governance.
According to SaharaReporters,
“The journalist is the owner of Y2S Online TV. He was illegally arrested and detained by the personnel of the Nigeria Police Force from Abuja, FCT Command. They took him to Abuja, detained him since the 27th of December 2022,”
“The arrest and illegal detention were done with the instruction of Senator Elisha Ishiaku Abbo, the senator representing Adamawa Northern Senatorial District at the National Assembly. .
“They also seized his liberty by not allowing him access to his phone. He was arrested just because he published people’s opinions on the lack of good governance. We heard Senator Abbo has directed the Commissioner of FCT Command to keep Yau Saeed Mubi till after the 2023 elections.”
In early March 2023, the All Progressive Congrees {APC}, Senator Abbo’s party, called for the arrest and prosecution of Senator Ishiaku Abbo over an alleged kidnapping and murder attempt.
“The ugly incident was said to be perpetrated by Sen. Ishaku Abbo and his sponsored thugs as attested by naira, the victim himself and the local government party chairman, Usman Isa.”
The party, while addressing the issue of alleged violent conduct by the senator, said: “In view of the foregoing, we strongly and totally condemn the inhuman action of the senator and his sponsored thugs and, hereby, call on the relevant security agencies to arrest and prosecute the culprits for kidnapping, attempted murder and assault.
“Meanwhile, we wish Saidu Naira, who is currently receiving medical attention in Abuja a very quick recovery.”
Senator Elisha Abbo is allegedly responsible for the death of his late wife, Eucharia Uche Ishiaku, after series of abuses in the marriage.
According to a report from The Sun, the younger sister of the deceased, Eunice Tochukwu Ojukwu reported to the newspaper that the senator used to be married to her sister and infected her with HIV without informing her of his status.
“I am the immediate junior sister of Eucharia Uche Ishiaku who was married to the man you all now know as Senator Elisha Abbo,” she declared. “His real name is Clifford Ishiaku, that’s the name we knew him till we saw the story on social media that he is now a senator.” she said
According to her, the couple met sometime before 2009 and before they got married, he converted from Islam to Christianity. On September 26, 2009, they had their church wedding at a Catholic church in Mubi, Adamawa.
Months after, she took ill and thereafter was treating a regular ailment, not knowing that she had been infected
with her result, instead of confessing, Senator Abbo battered my sister mercilessly with HIV.
“I got to know about her illness in 2012,” she said.
“On her sick bed, she told me everything that happened, especially how she got to know that she was infected with HIV.
She told me that she later discovered that her husband was already infected but held that information from her while they were dating. Unknown to her, he was going for treatment and was still sleeping with her without protection.
“It was destroying her system gradually and that made her sick.” Someone who observed the frequency of her illness had urged her to go for a general test. The Good Samaritan also paid for the test.
“This was how she found out that she was infected with HIV and that it was at a critical stage. When she confronted him.”
“We knew that he was raping our sister. He even tried to bring his friend so that both of them will sleep with my sister at the same time. She took a lot of stitches as a result of anal sex forced on her,” she said.
At a point, their father had contacted Ohanaeze Ndi-Igbo in Mubi, begging them to bring back her daughter.
“The day she finally left in 2012, Senator Abbofollowed her to the motor park and created a scene. He wanted to drag her back but my father pleaded with the driver to ensure that my sister boards the bus back to our village in Anambra.”
Of her sister, she said:
“She was a calm person who did not want to lose her marriage, so she kept the information to herself. There were several fights and when my sister calls me, I will plead with her to leave that man but she will refuse. She believed so much in that marriage until she was very sick.
There was an instance where he battered her so much in their house in Abuja and dragged her out of the house naked. Anytime that he was beating her up, neighbours tried to intervene and he’d threaten them with a gun.”
She continued:
“When they were in Abuja, he would dump her in the hospital for days, and no one would be there to give her food till the hospital alerted us and we’d send someone to her. We were in and out of the hospital for six months before she died in 2013. When my sister died, he called that he was going to deal with me that I was the one that killed my sister.”
She gave an insight into how her sister met him.
“Eunice said that they started dating during her National Youth Service Corps days in Nasarawa in 2008. He had worked for so many known politicians in the north. He visited their orientation camp and they met and became friends. When our sister came up with the story of marriage, my family kicked against it.
My family was against the marriage because they were not in support of inter-tribal marriage. We do not know much about the northerner and their culture. When she died and I posted it on my Facebook wall, her friends doubted it because Senator Abbo did not say anything about it on his Facebook wall.”
There has been distrust between Senator Abbo and Governor Fintiri of Adamawa State since 2019. In December, 2019, Senator Abbo wrote the Inspector General of Police, warnning the Executive Governor of Adamawa state, Rt Hon Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri not to constitute himself to a chief security threat to the state he received free mandate to govern. This was two days to the local government election in the state.
Few weeks to the governorship election in Adamawa state, Sen. Abbo during APC stakeholders press conference, was quoted to have vowed to wrest power from those he termed “kleptomaniacs” come 2023.
Senator Abbo was quoted as saying, he joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) not to seek power but to right, the many ills brought about by the current PDP government in Adamawa State.
“We are in APC in the interest of Nigeria and the interest of Adamawa state. We are not power mongers. We are not desperate politicians. We come together so we can restore Adamawa State from the grip of a kleptocratic government.
“Some of us are thinking senator Abbo came into APC to contest for governor. I joined APC so that I can help champion a better Adamawa state for my own children.
“Nobody among us here is after becoming a governor or senator or house of reps members after the interest of Adamawa state.
“We are not desperate about power but are desperate about one thing, that is to remove that thief, ” Abbo said.
The senator said he is not afraid of making such a statement adding that as a legislature, he has no immunity and can be sued.
He regretted that when the governor served in an acting capacity for 76 days, he nearly sold the government house adding that in his nearly two years as the governor of Adamawa State, Fintiri did not commission a single project.
It can therefore be stated that Senator Ishiaku Abbo desperately wanted Fintiri out as governor of Adamawa state, hence, his support for the illegal actions of the Resident Election Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa-Ari
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