The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Yekini Nabena, has reacted to a recent court judgment, which sentenced one Prof. Peter Ogban, to a three-year jail term for manipulating the result of Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial district election, saying the ruling has finally vindicated Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio and the ruling party.
Ogban, a professor of Soil Science at the University of Calabar, Cross River State, was sentenced by the Akwa Ibom state High Court 2 to three years imprisonment for the electoral fraud he committed during the 2019 elections in the state.
The jailed professor who acted as the Collation/Returning Officer during the National Assembly election, stood trial on two counts of manipulating and falsifying scores of election results in Oruk Anam and Etim Ekpo Local Government Areas.
He was also fined the sum of N100,000 for the two counts respectively.
In a statement issued on Friday in Abuja titled, “PDP’s Electoral Fraud: Court has Vindicated APC, Akpabio – Nabena,’ the Spokesman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Yekini Nabena, said the Peoples Democratic Party elements who made use of the UNICAL professor to rig out Akpabio as APC’s candidate at the poll should bury their heads in shame.
“We celebrate the court’s pronouncement jailing one of the agents of the PDP used against our candidate (Akpabio) in the senatorial election in Akwa Ibom North-West in 2019.
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“We always believe that ‘if a lie goes for twenty years the truth will meet it one day. This judgement is significant in the sense that others like Prof. Ogban in the system should henceforth know that under the present Federal Government-APC’s administration, justice will always prevail.”
According to the Spokesman, the senatorial election was fraudulently postponed by the returning officer against the wish of the APC and its candidate, while all the complaints made by Akpabio and the ruling were not given attention.
He maintained that it was on record that during the election, the minister asked INEC to redeploy the then Resident Electoral Commissioner in Akwa Ibom State when he (Akpabio) noticed that the PDP was using some officials of the electoral umpire against him.
He condemned the alleged “manipulative strategy” being employed by the PDP and its agents, particularly in Akwa Ibom State, to discredit the APC and Akpabio as a result of the court’s judgment.
Nabena called on Nigerians to disregard the alleged attempt by the PDP and its sponsored agents to “misinform the general public on the real issue, the interpretation of the court judgment and the integrity challenge bothering on the PDP.”
