Nigeria’s youngest senator has been caught on camera physically assaulting a woman at an adult toy shop in Abuja.
Elisha Abbo, representing Adamawa North Senatorial District, descended on the woman after she pleaded with him not to physically assault the shop owner whom the senator had accused of insulting him.
He said the shop owner called him a drunk.
Premium Times 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 learnt.
Mr Abbo, a 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 learnt.
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 shop owner 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 shop owner of poisoning the store’s air-conditioner.
The shop owner’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.
The attendant picks her phone and begins to speak with her father about the incident but Abbo, a member of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), quickly tells her to drop the call.
A friend of the attendant tries to intervene. “Oga, please take it easy now,” she said.
The Senator immediately flared up and hit her several times on the face. The attendant’s friend was later forced out by the police officer on the order of Abbo.
The assaulted woman, said to be a nursing mother, was taken to a hospital the following day where she was treated for eye inflammation and other injuries inflicted on her by the lawmaker.
Since the case was reported on May 14 at the Maitama Area Command Headquarters on Nile Street, the police have been reportedly negligent on the matter.
Abbo was said to have returned to the store to warn against releasing the footage of the incident.