Akpabio refutes link to jailed INEC Official, labels allegation as malicious

President of the Nigerian Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has strongly denied any association with Professor Peter Ogban, a former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) official who was convicted for electoral malpractice during the 2019 National Assembly elections in Akwa Ibom State.

In a statement released on Wednesday in Abuja by his Special Assistant on Media and Communication, Anietie Ekong, Senator Akpabio described the allegations as baseless, malicious, and a calculated attempt to tarnish his reputation.

Ekong stated: “For the umpteenth time, as I did when Senator Godswill Akpabio served as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, I wish to reiterate that the claim suggesting the jailed INEC official, Prof. Peter Ogban, was convicted for rigging an election in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is spurious, malicious, and designed to smear the image of the Senate President.”

He clarified that Professor Ogban, a lecturer in Soil Science at the University of Calabar, was convicted by an Akwa Ibom State High Court for manipulating election results in the Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District on 23 February 2019. Akpabio, who contested the election on the platform of the APC, was not a beneficiary of the rigging but in fact, suffered from it.

According to Ekong, Ogban, who served as the Returning Officer for the senatorial district, colluded with the Resident Electoral Commissioner to cancel votes belonging to Akpabio, including over 61,000 votes from his native local government area, Essien Udim. This prompted Akpabio to challenge the result at the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal and subsequently at the Court of Appeal, both of which ruled in his favour and ordered a rerun in Essien Udim.

“The conviction of Prof. Ogban only confirmed what Akpabio and the APC had always maintained – that the election was compromised. It defies logic to suggest that someone who cancelled Akpabio’s votes and declared his opponent the winner was acting in his favour,” the statement read.

Ekong further noted that those peddling the allegations remain aggrieved by the outcome of the rerun election and Akpabio’s continued political ascendancy. He stressed that the Senate President has since moved on and remains committed to his duties, refusing to be distracted by what he termed groundless accusations driven by political mischief