Senator Abbo Denies Rape Allegation, Police Custody Reports

Senator Ishaku Abbo, who represented Adamawa North in the 9th Senate and briefly in the 10th, has strongly denied allegations that he raped a 13-year-old secondary school student in June.

On Thursday, several media outlets claimed that Abbo was being held in police custody over the alleged offense leveled by the mother of the purported victim.

However, in a swift response Friday morning, Abbo described the allegations as “baseless, unfounded and mischievous.” He said he was at his residence in Katampe extension, Abuja, on Thursday and never went to a police station, let alone being detained.
He asserted that the report was the handiwork of political adversaries seeking to smear his reputation. Abbo also admitted to a separate incident: that a “female money monger” allegedly demanded N5 million from him, and that he reported this extortion attempt to police.

Adding complexity to the situation, various reports indicate that Abbo later turned himself in at the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), following pressure from the public and media.

The petition filed against him alleged that the incident occurred on June 29, 2025, at hiis Katampe residence, and that efforts were made to silence the family with financial inducements.

The family further claimed that Senator Aishatu Binani, the 2023 governorship candidate in Adamawa, visited them to discourage them from pursuing the case.

This is not the first time Abbo has been embroiled in scandal. In 2019, a viral video showed him assaulting a woman in a sex toy shop, for which courts had ordered damages.

In 2023, an appeal court upheld a ₦50 million damages judgment against him in that assault case.
His critics argue that the timing and nature of this new allegation fit a pattern of recurrent controversies surrounding the senator.