The Court of Appeal sitting in Calabar, Cross River State, has upheld the conviction and three-year prison sentence of Professor Peter Ogban, a University of Calabar (UNICAL) academic, for electoral fraud in the 2019 Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District election, in favour of a former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs and current Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
In a landmark ruling delivered on Wednesday, the appellate court affirmed the earlier judgement of the Akwa Ibom High Court in Ikot Ekpene, which found Professor Ogban guilty of manipulating and announcing falsified election results. The court condemned his conduct in strong terms, citing the grave implications of such acts by someone entrusted with safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process.
Professor Ogban, a renowned professor of Soil Physics, served as the returning officer for the 2019 senatorial election in Akwa Ibom North-West. Investigations by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) revealed that he altered the final results to inflate Akpabio’s vote count at the expense of his main opponent, Senator Christopher Ekpenyong of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who eventually won the election as Akpabio lost his re-election bid.
Despite the ruling, Akpabio has consistently denied any involvement in the electoral malpractice.
The conviction followed a rigorous investigation led by the then Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of INEC in Akwa Ibom State, Barrister Mike Igini. Under his leadership, the commission pursued the prosecution of two university professors, Ogban and Ignatius Uduk, for their roles in election result manipulation during the 2019 general election.
Similarly, earlier this year in February, the Akwa Ibom State High Court in Uyo sentenced Professor Ignatius Uduk of the University of Uyo to three years in prison for perjury and the publication of false election results. Uduk served as the returning officer for the Essien Udim State Constituency election in 2019.
In addition to the prison term, Uduk was fined N100,000.
His case, first initiated in December 2020 after a warrant for his arrest was issued, faced multiple delays including a change of counsel, his collapse in the courtroom during cross-examination, and a dramatic request that the presiding judge recuse himself on grounds of alleged bias. Ironically, after the case was reassigned, it returned to the same judge for continuation.
LEADERSHIP reports that Akpabio, however, returned to the Senate in 2023 and eventually become the Senate President.
