By ANIETIE EKONG

Lately, there has been an upsurge of politically-motivated and unwarranted attacks on the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, using several guises camouflaged as serving public interest. The article by Mr. Segun Adeniyi on the back page of THISDAY, Thursday, May 8, 2025, is one of such attempts to rewrite our recent political history using distorted narratives related to the 2019 senatorial election in Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District.

In the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Dr. Chris Ekpenyong of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the winner of one of the most controversial elections in recent times. The courts later upturned the election, convicted the returning officer, Prof Peter Ogban for not upholding the integrity of the electoral process. No sooner had the verdict been handed down than the opposition went to town with the illogical narrative that the Professor rigged the election for Akpabio, the man who was announced by the same returning officer as the loser of the election!

It could be a curious coincidence or coordinated follow-up that Mr. Adeniyi's article came few days after their sister medium, ARISE NEWS, hosted Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre who claimed to represent 60 other civil society organizations which on the basis of this twisted logic and an election conducted in 2019 outrageously claimed "Akpabio is the beneficiary of electoral fraud" (an election the umpire claimed he lost and never returned to the Senate) and on the basis of this narrative called on him to step down as Senate President.

Hear Mr. Rafsanjani on ARISE NEWS: "There is no way the Professor involved in committing electoral fraud in 2019 in favour of Akpabio will go to jail while he sits comfortably enjoying." Mr. Adeniyi also toed this line: "The professor of Soil Science at the University of Calabar was the returning officer in the 2019 Akwa Ibom North West senatorial election, which he attempted to rig in favour of the man who is now our Senate President: Godswill Akpabio." This is mischief taken too far.

Firstly, Akpabio did not win the 2019 senatorial election. INEC declared Dr. Chris Ekpenyong of the PDP the winner, not Senator Akpabio. How does a person who lost become the ?beneficiary? of a rigged election? For the umpteenth time, Senator Akpabio did not return to the Senate in 2019 because he lost the election or so INEC claimed. The call for Senator Akpabio to step aside on the grounds that he allegedly benefitted from a 2019 rigged election is not only baseless, it is absurd and a manifestation of intellectual dishonesty by those who continue to peddle such.

It is surprising how Mr. Adeniyi celebrates illegality perpetrated by INEC. "However, before that declaration at the INEC state office in Uyo by Ogban, there had been some unsavoury developments at the Ikot Ekpene senatorial collation centre that led to the intervention of the then Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Mr. Mike Igini." INEC acted illegally by hijacking the collated results from Ikot Ekpene to Uyo where the votes were severely mutilated to achieve a predetermined goal by a supposed umpire who was quoted severally to have said that "under my watch Akpabio cannot win any election in Akwa Ibom State."

The assertion by Adeniyi quoting an INEC staff that ?Thugs had gone on the rampage in most parts of the LGA as soon as the polls were open. They snatched and stuffed ballot boxes, foreclosed the use of Smart Card Readers, brutalised INEC ad hoc personnel and prevented voters from exercising their franchise,? sounds very familiar. At the Election Petition Tribunal INEC brought many of their adhoc staff whom they had coached to claim that elections were disrupted in Essien Udim Local Government Area by thugs purportedly hired by Akpabio.

The witnesses at the Tribunal were more dramatic. They painted pictures how thugs invaded polling units in the Local Government Area, shot at everyone, hijacked electoral officers and materials and took them to unknown locations where figures were arbitrarily allocated to Akpabio. However, the lead Counsel to Akpabio, S. I. Ameh, SAN asked the INEC witnesses, did the so-called thugs in anyway realize that what they did was wrong and later brought back the personnel and materials for the election to be conducted to which they answered that there was nothing of the sort. However, the card reader reports produced by the same INEC tendered by Ameh showed that elections were actually held and captured the biometrics of the voters. These are the votes that were unilaterally cancelled by Mr Mike Igini under the spurious claim that thugs did not allow elections to be held in Essien Udim.

It is worth noting that the Election Tribunal which Akpabio challenged the election had a split judgement. The minority judgement by Justice Sheriff Hafizu has remained a huge moral burden on INEC and those who claimed the election was rigged in favour of Akpabio.

As reported by THE PUNCH newspaper of September 12, 2019, with the headline: "Tribunal robbed Senator Akpabio of victory - Justice Hafizu" the report said: "The Minority Judge also submitted that the Witnesses of the Respondents were unreliable as they gave contradictory evidence during trial. He cited cases of witnesses who had alleged that they were abducted by APC thugs and forced to thumb-print for the party only for card reader reports to put a lie to such claims, a contention that the majority judgement glossed over.

"According to Justice Hafizu, INEC was wrong to have cancelled the 61,329 votes by APC in Essien Udim Local Government Area against PDP score of 9,050 votes. He said the unlawful cancellation of the votes was a clear case of robbery since it did not follow the due process of INEC guidelines." The Judges at the Appeal Court were equally so peeved by the cancellation of collated votes of Akpabio by Igini that they annulled the Tribunal judgement and ordered a rerun election by which time Akpabio had assumed duties as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs and declined to participate in the Appeal Court ordered rerun election.

Fast forward to 2023. Akpabio contested against a legal luminary, Emmanuel Enoidem, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and the immediate past National Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP.) By this time the Principality at INEC who had vowed that Akpabio can never win any election in Akwa Ibom State had left the stage. The senatorial election was so overwhelmingly won by Akpabio that his opponent, so well versed in law, never bothered to challenge it at the Tribunal. To Akwa Ibom people, it was laughable that anybody would think that Akpabio would rig any election moreso in his Local Government Area where he has remained a hero because of the development he had brought to the area.

It is confounding that the people championing the Akpabio-must-step-down campaign because he was a "beneficiary of rigging" cannot distinguish between the charade of 2019 and the election of 2023. Attempting to link this legitimate victory with the unrelated 2019 election saga is both laughable and intellectually dishonest. The election of 2023 which had no legal challenge is the mandate upon which Akpabio currently serves as the President of the Senate.

A thorough reading of the judgment that convicted Prof. Ogban, as well as the Court of Appeal decision, makes it abundantly clear that Senator Godswill Akpabio was not mentioned, indicted, or found to have benefitted from Prof. Ogban?s unethical actions. If anything, Akpabio was a victim of rigging by the same institution which was supposed to be an unbiased umpire.

? Ekong is Special Assistant (Media/Communication) to the President of the Senate.

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