Akpabio falsely claims 2019 senatorial election was rigged against him

Senate President Godswill Akpabio has again falsely claimed that he was the victim, not the beneficiary, of the 2019 election fraud in the Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial election.

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“I was cheated in 2019 election,” Mr Akpabio said during plenary on Thursday while speaking on the plan to amend Nigeria’s election laws.

PREMIUM TIMES has done several reports on how the convicted university professor, Peter Ogban, rigged the 2019 senatorial election for Mr Akpabio, who was seeking a second term. Mr Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom, was the APC candidate in the election.

In March 2021, a State High Court in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom, found Mr Ogban, a professor of Soil Science at the University of Calabar, and a returning officer in the district election, guilty of fraudulent manipulation of election results, publishing and announcing of false results in two local government areas – Oruk Anam and Etim Ekpo. He was prosecuted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)

The court sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment.

Shortly after the court jailed Mr Ogban, Mr Akpabio, who was then minister of Niger Delta Affairs, disowned the professor and said the judgement vindicated him (Akpabio).

“He (Akpabio) is vindicated that the perpetrators of the electoral fraud are being brought to justice; at last, the chickens are coming home to roost,” Mr Akpabio’s spokesperson, Anietie Ekong, had said in a statement in Abuja.

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Mr Akpabio said at the time that the jailed professor joined then-INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Akwa Ibom State, Mike Igini, to deny him victory in the election.

“For the avoidance of doubt Ogban never announced Akpabio as the winner of any election; instead, he cancelled his lawful votes and announced his opponent as the winner of the manipulated election.

“It is the height of mischief for anyone to say that a man who arbitrarily cancelled lawfully collated votes of the APC and announced PDP winner of the election was working for Akpabio.

“In due time, we believe all the conspirators will be brought to justice as Ogban, either through the judiciary or divine intervention,” Mr Akpabio said.

About four years later, Mr Akpabio has backtracked, claiming that the disgraced professor was a victim, not a “perpetrator”.

“They prosecuted the wrong person,” the Senate president said at Thursday’s plenary, a statement that appears targeted at Mr Igini, the former resident electoral commissioner in Akwa Ibom.

He also restated his claim that the election was rigged against him.

“The same INEC resident electoral commissioner (Mr Igini), working with some cohorts, changed the story and said the man was trying to assist Senator Godswill Akpabio. If the man was trying to assist Senator Godswill Akpabio, how come they burnt my votes in my local government? How come I was not announced as the winner?” he said.

How the professor was nailed

Before his conviction and sentencing, Mr Ogban, in one of the court sessions, told the court how the district election results were falsified in Oruk Anam and Etim Ekpo local government areas to give the APC an unfair advantage over its main rival, the PDP.

For instance, some 5,000 fake votes were added to the APC’s score in Oruk Anam in the election.

During cross-examination by the prosecution counsel, Mr Ogban admitted that the votes he entered for both the APC and the PDP in the two local government areas were not taken from results collated at the constituency.

As his defence, he said the votes he entered were “read out” to him by the local government areas’ returning officers.

However, two INEC witnesses – John Enoidem and Itemobong Ekaidem – contradicted the professor’s claim.

The witnesses, university lecturers and collation officers in the two local government areas, told the court that what Mr Ogban entered as scores for APC and PDP were not what they presented to him.

Here is how the Guardian newspaper captured the court session where the two INEC witnesses were cross-examined: “In their testimonies, they said the results they collated at the council level, which were presented to Ogban, differed from the results he finally declared.

“For the Oruk Anam Council result, Enoidem noted that while his result showed that the APC scored 10,534 votes and the PDP 25,123 votes, the accused declared that the APC polled 15,534, while PDP got 20,123 votes.

“He, thereby, reduced PDP’s votes by 5,000 and increased APC score by the same number of ballots. Ekaidem added that while the results for Etim Ekpo Council showed that APC scored 2,671 votes and PDP got 6,603, the result Ogban finally declared showed that APC scored 5,671 votes compared to PDP’s 3,306, amounting to a difference of 3,000 in favour of the former.”

Mr Ogban’s defence that the fraudulent votes he entered for Mr Akpabio in the election were “read out” to him would later attract a rebuke from the Court of Appeal, Calabar, on 30 April.

“The rank of university professor is not one easily attainable and is certainly not a rank attained by fools,” the Court of Appeal said in its judgement affirming the 25 March 2021 conviction and three years’ imprisonment of the professor by the Akwa Ibom State High Court.

Meanwhile, the professor is free instead of serving his prison term.

Before the Akwa Ibom High Court sentenced him, Mr Ogban pleaded for mercy. He told the judge he had learnt his lesson.

“When next I am given a responsibility, I will be extra careful. All that glitters is not gold. Everyone is a persona. The way they look is not the way they are. I will be very careful in dealing with people,” he had said before the court.

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What we know about the election

The 2019 election was Mr Akpabio’s toughest political battle to date – he lost his bid to return to the Senate, failed to unseat his successor, Governor Udom Emmanuel, with whom he fell out, failed to get the APC to win a single seat at the National Assembly, and could not get President Muhammadu Buhari to win in Akwa Ibom.

During the district election, Mr Akpabio’s challenger, a former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom, Chris Ekpenyong of the PDP, was leading with a wide margin, until the APC began to scramble for “suspicious” votes, which they could use to change the election course.

INEC, at some point, suspended the announcement of the election results in Essien Udim Local Government Area, where Mr Akpabio hails from.

“If we accept the results from the local government area, Akpabio’s votes will overshoot that of Chris Ekpenyong,” an official of INEC told PREMIUM TIMES at that time.

“There are issues in the results which are yet to be resolved,” the official had said.

The elections in the area were marred by pockets of violence.

“I have records of presiding officers who were speaking to me in low tones because of where they were and what was going on. God gave the returning officer wisdom, and today he is alive,” the resident electoral commissioner, Mr Igini, had said, when he told journalists and representatives of political parties why the commission could not announce the results from Essien Udim.

INEC later conducted a rerun election in the area, as ordered by the Court of Appeal, Calabar. But Mr Akpabio backed out of it, leaving the PDP to win easily, even though the election was still characterised by violence, including INEC officials being held hostage in Mr Akpabio’s ward.