A high court in Akwa Ibom State has sentenced Peter Ogban, a professor of soil science at the University of Calabar (UNICAL) to three years in prison for rigging election results.
Ogban was the returning officer in the senatorial election in Akwa Ibom North-west in 2019.
He was prosecuted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The court found him guilty of altering results of the election to favour of Godswill Akpabio of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against incumbent Senator Christopher Ekpenyong of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Working together with Peter Ogban, Uduk was said to have announced the senatorial bye-election results conducted by INEC.
Ogban was charged for manipulating the election results of two local government areas – Oruk Anam and Etim Ekpo.
The court found the professor guilty of fraudulent manipulation of election results, publishing and announcing false results. The court also asked the professor to pay a fine of N100,000.
In a previous court session, Mr Ogban had told the court how the results of the election were falsified to give Akpabio an unfair advantage over his main rival, Ekpenyong, the PDP candidate.
For instance, the court found out that some 5,000 fake votes were added to the APC’s score in Oruk Anam, in the election.
Godswill Akpabio, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, was the APC candidate in the election. He was seeking a return to the Senate after he defected from the PDP.
