Appeal Court Upholds Conviction of Professor Ogban for Electoral Fraud Benefiting Akpabio
Professor Peter Ogban’s conviction and three-year jail sentence for interfering with the 2019 Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial election results in favor of Senator Godswill Akpabio have been affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Calabar, Cross River State.
The appellate court upheld the previous decision of the High Court in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, which had found Ogban guilty of election malpractice, in its order on Wednesday.
The court firmly condemned Ogban’s misbehavior, emphasizing how grave his acts were in light of his academic reputation and the confidence the public had placed in him during the election process.
The returning officer for the Senate election was Professor Ogban, a professor of soil physics at the University of Calabar. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) charged him after discovering that he had falsified statistics to support Godswill Akpabio, the then-Minister of Niger Delta Affairs.
Ogban was found guilty of fabricating results in order to increase Akpabio’s support for his opponent, PDP candidate Christopher Ekpenyong.
Akpabio has denied having anything to do with the electoral malpractice.
Barrister Mike Igini, the former INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Akwa Ibom, oversaw the investigation and legal action that resulted in Ogban’s conviction.
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Two professors, Ogban and Professor Ignatius Uduk, were prosecuted as a result of his efforts for their roles in announcing manipulated election results. One of those historic convictions is now firmly established by the Court of Appeal’s decision.
In a similar issue, a Uyo State High Court condemned Professor Ignatius Uduk of the University of Uyo to three years in prison in February for perjury and proclaiming phony results during the 2019 general elections. For the voting in the Essien Udim State Constituency, Uduk was the returning officer.
In addition to the jail term, the court assessed a ₦100,000 fine.
In Uduk’s case, a Nigerian professor was found guilty of election misconduct for the second time. Due to his repeated failures to appear at court, a warrant for his arrest was issued in November 2020, and he was first arraigned in December 2020.
The trial was beset by a number of delays, including a dramatic moment when Uduk fell in court during cross-examination and a change in defense counsel, despite his not guilty plea to the three-count accusation brought by INEC.
Uduk accused the presiding judge of bias at one point during the trial and asked him to step aside. They granted that request.
The case was returned to the original judge for further proceedings after being reassigned by the state’s chief judge.
