TheCable

The court of appeal in Abuja has sacked Ibrahim Abdullahi, speaker of the Nasarawa state house of assembly.

In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, the appellate court declared Sa’ad Ibrahim, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as winner of the March 18 Umaisha/Ugya state constituency election.

Abdullahi contested the poll on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Abdullahi’s sack comes months after some members of the assembly asked the federal high court in Lafia to stop him and Jacob Kudu, from parading themselves as the speaker and deputy, respectively.

The lawmakers had in a suit marked FHC/LF/CS/8/23, asked the court to make “an order nullifying the purported oath of office taken on the 6th day of June 2023”, by Abdullahi, Kudu and nine other members-elect. 

The suit followed a crisis in the house which produced two speakers after Abdullahi Sule, governor of Nasarawa, inaugurated the state’s seventh assembly on June 6. 

Abdullahi and Daniel Ogazi, who were speakers of the fifth and sixth assembly, laid claim to the speakership position of the seventh assembly.

Abdullahi was elected speaker at a sitting which took place at the ministry of local government and chieftaincy affairs by 11 out of 24 members of the house, while Ogazi was elected by 13 members at the plenary at the assembly complex.