Teen Political Hopeful's Age Scandal Rocks Nigeria's APC

Sometimes a viral moment is just too good to be true—and Mahmud Sadis Buba’s meteoric rise in Nigerian politics is the perfect case study in why.

Last month, a screening video for the All Progressives Congress (APC) House of Representatives race went viral, and suddenly Mahmud Sadis Buba—known as“Abin Al-Ajabin Zazzau,”or The Wonder of Zaria—was everywhere. The candidate from Sabon Gari spoke with quiet humility about his journey, claiming to be 30 years old and driven by a call from the people he wanted to serve. His line,“It is not about me, it is from the people. People called me to serve them, and I will serve,”landed like a breath of fresh air in Nigerian politics. Social media erupted with admiration for this figure who seemed to embody a more inclusive political moment.

Then came the documents.

Screenshots of an international passport, national identification slip, birth certificate, and school records all pointed to the same uncomfortable truth: Mahmud Sadis Buba wasn’t 30. If those documents were accurate, he was born in 2010—making him 16 years old, not old enough to legally run for office, and more importantly, a minor. A former teacher stepped forward to confirm the timeline, stating she’d taught him in junior secondary school. The candidate attributed his diminutive stature and youthful appearance to dwarfism, but the evidence piled up faster than the APC could manage the fallout.

The party initially pushed back, framing Buba as the victim of a smear campaign. But as more proof surfaced, they had no choice: they disqualified him over alleged age falsification. Buba withdrew with a polite letter citing reconciliation efforts and party leadership’s guidance. Just like that, the Wonder of Zaria’s moment was over.

What lingers isn’t the scandal itself—it’s the question nobody’s answered yet. How did a teenager get past the APC’s screening process in the first place? Was it incompetence, or something more deliberate? The article notes that these questions remain unanswered, and they should. Because if a 16-year-old with falsified documents can nearly slip into the National Assembly, it raises serious questions about institutional rigor, oversight, and who’s actually minding the gate. The real scandal might not be Buba at all. It might be the system that almost let him through.