Inc, electoral rigger and twisted narratives, Ekong Anietie

Lately, there has been an increase in politically motivated and unjustified attacks on the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio using different forms camouflaged as a public interest. The article of Mr. Segun Adeniyi on the backpage of this day, Thursday 8 May 2025 is one of these attempts to rewrite our recent political history using distorted narratives relating to the Senatorial Elections of 2019 in the Senatorial District of the North Western Akwa.

In the elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INC) had declared Dr. Chris Ekpenyong of the Democratic Party of people (PDP) the winner of one of the most controversial elections in recent times. The courts subsequently updated the elections, sentenced the return officer, prof. Peter Ogban for not having supported the integrity of the electoral process. As soon as the verdict had been issued, the opposition went to the city with the illogical narrative that the professor made up the elections for Akpabio, the man who was announced by the same return officer of the loser of the elections!

It could be a curious coincidence or coordinated follow-up that the article of Mr. Adeniyi arrived a few days after their half sister, listening hosted Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani, executive director of the Legislative Defense Center of Civil Society who said to represent another 60 civil organizations that were the foundations that represented the beneficiary of civil society that represent the beneficiary of other civil organizations that represent the beneficial of civil society that represent the other organizations of civil society that represent the beneficiary of civil society. Fraud “(an election that the referee claimed to have lost and never returned to the Senate) and on the basis of this narrative he invited him to resign as president of the Senate.

Listen to Mr. Rafsanjani on Arise News: “There is no way that the professor involved in the electoral fraud commission in 2019 in favor of Akpabio will go to prison while sitting comfortably.” Mr. Adeniyi is also this line: “The professor of land science at the University of Calabar was the return official in the Senatorial Elections of the North West of Akwa Ibom in 2019, who tried to make up in favor of the man who is now our president of the Senate: Godswill Akpabio.” This is a mischievous taken too far.

Firstly, Akpabio did not win the 2019 Senatorial Elections. Incen said Dr. Chris Ekpenyong of the PDP The winner, not Senator Akpabio. How does a person who has lost becomes the “beneficiary” of a rigged election? For the umpteenth time, Senator Akpabio did not return to the Senate in 2019 because he lost his elections or so the Incen supported. The request of Senator Akpabio to get aside for the reasons that presumably benefited from a fairy election of 2019 is not only without foundation, it is absurd and a manifestation of intellectual dishonesty by those who continue to pretend.

It is surprising as Mr. Adeniyi famous illegality perpetrated by Ill. “However, before that declaration at the UC State Office in Uyo by Ogban, there were some unpleasant developments at the Ikot Ekpene senatorial collection center which led to the intervention of the then electoral commissioner resident (REC) in the State, Mike Igini.” Istac has acted illegally by diverting the results collected by Ikot Ekpene to Uyo in which the votes were seriously mutilated to achieve a predetermined goal by an alleged referee who was quoted severely for having said that “under my Akpabio watch cannot win any election in the state of Akwa Ibom”.

Adeniyi’s affirmation citing an INC staff according to which “the criminals had unleashed in most of the LGA as soon as the polls were open. They torn and stuffed the polls, precluded the use of smart cards readers, the staff of the inscription of Inec Bructolized and prevented the voters from exercising their franchise”, it seems very familiar. At the electoral petition, the Incen court brought many of their ADHOC staff members who had trained to say that the elections were interrupted in the area of ​​the local government of Essien Udim by criminals presumably taken by Akpabio.

The witnesses of the court were more dramatic. They painted photos of how criminals invaded the electoral units in the local government area, taken to everyone, diverted officials and electoral materials and brought them to unknown places where the figures were arbitrarily assigned to Akpabio. However, the main consultant of Akpabio, Si Ameh, asked the INC witnesses, did the so -called criminals in any case realizes that what they did was wrong and later he reported the staff and materials for the elections to be conducted to which they replied that there was nothing of the genre. However, the reports on the cards produced by the Inec itself offered by Ameh showed that the elections were actually detained and captured the biometry of the voters. These are the votes that have been canceled unilaterally by Mr. Mike Igini under the affirmation Spuria that criminals have not allowed the elections to be held in Essien Udim.

It is worth noting that the electoral court that Akpabio contested the elections had a divided judgment. The judgment of the minority by the sheriff of the judge Hafizu remained a huge moral burden for the Incen and those who said that the elections were made up in favor of Akpabio.

As reported by the Punch newspaper of 12 September 2019, with the title: “Tribunal robbed the Senator Akpabio of Victory-Justice Hafizu”, the report said: “The minority judge also said that the witnesses of the interviewees were unreliable as they gave the contradictory evidence during the trial. Relations to give a liar to these statements, a thesis according to which the judgment of the majority has a majority judgment. reduced.

“According to judge Hafizu, the INNC was wrong to canceled the 61,329 votes by APC in the area of ​​the local government of Essien Udim against the PDP score of 9,050 votes. He said that the illegal cancellation of the votes was a clear case of robbery since he did not follow the due guide process Incen.” The judges of the Court of Appeal were equally so crossed by the cancellation of the collected votes of Akpabio by Igini who had canceled the judgment of the Court and ordered a repetition election within which Akpabio had assumed the duties as Minister of Affairs of the Niger delta and had refused to participate in the appeal court that ordered the election.

Quickly until 2023 The senatorial elections were so strangely won by Akpabio that his opponent, so well expert on the law, has never taken the trouble to challenge him to the court. For Akwa Ibom People, it was ridiculous that anyone who would have thought that Akpabio would overcome any electoral Moreso in his area of ​​the local government where he remained a hero because of the development he had brought to the area.

It is confusing that people who support the Akpabio-Must-Step-Down campaign because it was a “rigging beneficiary” cannot distinguish between the 2019 charada and the election of 2023. The attempt to connect this legitimate victory with the unrelated 2019 electoral saga is both ridiculous and intellectual. The election of 2023 that has not had any legal challenge is the mandate on which Akpabio is currently president of the Senate.

An in -depth reading of the sentence that Prof. Ogban condemned, as well as the decision of the Court of Appeal, clarifies abundantly that senator Godswill Akpabio has not been mentioned, offending or found that he had benefited from non -ethical actions of Prof. Ogban. If anything, Akpabio was the victim of rigging by the same institution which should have been an impartial referee.

● Ekong is a special assistant (media/communication) to the President of the Senate.