Supreme Court sacks Reps Hembe, Sen Abubakar from Nat’l Assembly

The Supreme Court on Friday, threw out two lawmakers from the National Assembly as it faulted the elections that brought them in.

The affected lawmakers; Herman Hembe and Sen Sani Abubakar were asked to vacate their seats immediately and refund all monies collected as salaries.

Hembe represented Vandikwa/Konshisha Federal Constituency of Benue State, while Sen Abubakar represented Taraba North constituency at the upper chamber.

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The apex court declared that Mrs. Dorothy Mato was the rightful winner of the All Progressives Congress ticket for Vandikwa/Konshisha Federal Constituency of Benue State, and hence the winner of the election that produced Hembe as winner.

The court therefore ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately issue certificate of return to Mrs Mato.

Hembe, a law graduate got into stormy waters in 2012 when the EFCC quizzed him over a bribery saga that rocked the House Committee on Capital Market, of which he was chairman.

Then Director-General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh had accused Hembe of demanding bribe from her commission.

She also accused him of collecting estacode and a business class ticket from SEC for an overseas study in Dominican Republic, but he never attended the programme, nor returned the money.

Oteh said considering all this, Hembe and his committee lacked the credibility to continue with the investigation of her stewardship. The impact was overwhelming.

The whole committee was later disbanded, and another one headed by Rep Ibrahim Tukur Elsudi (PDP, Taraba) was mandated to conclude the investigations.
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