Akpabio
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The Court of Appeal sitting in Calabar, Cross River state, on Wednesday confirmed the three-year prison sentence imposed on Prof Peter Ogban of Calabar for his involvement in electoral fraud during the 2019 Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial election.
The appellate court affirmed the decision of the Akwa Ibom State High Court in Ikot Ekpene, which found the professor of soil science, who served as the returning officer for the 2019 Senate election in Akwa Ibom North-West, guilty of manipulating election results to favour Godswill Akpabio, former minister of Niger Delta affairs and current senate president.
The court described his conduct as a betrayal of public trust with far-reaching consequences for the integrity of Nigeria’s electoral process.
Ogban was guilty altering the final vote count to inflate Akpabio’s numbers and suppressed the votes of his main challenger, Christopher Ekpenyong of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Despite the manipulation, however, Akpabio still lost the election to Ekpenyong.
Investigations by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, under the leadership of Mike Igini, then resident electoral commissioner (REC) in Akwa Ibom, led to Ogban’s prosecution alongside another academic, Ignatius Uduk.
INEC said both men played critical roles in falsifying election results during the 2019 general election.
Akpabio has repeatedly denied any involvement in the electoral malpractice.
Despite losing his 2019 re-election bid, Akpabio still returned to the senate in 2023 and is currently the president of the Tenth Senate.
