The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has commended the High Court of Akwa Ibom State that jailed Prof. Peter Ogban, who admitted manipulating the result of Akwa-Ibom Northwest senatorial election in 2019 in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The party’s reaction came in a Thursday statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan
The Herald had reported that Justice Augustine Odokwo sentenced Prof Ogban, who served as Returning Officer in the 2019 general election in the senatorial district, to three years imprisonment and equally fined him N100,000.
The statement read, “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has commended the judiciary for its courage to stand on the side of the people to jail one of the corrupt returning officers, who connived with the All Progressive Congress (APC) to rewrite election results against the PDP in the 2019 general elections.
“The party said the three years jailed term handed to Prof. Peter Ogban, a professor of soil science at the University of Calabar, for manipulating the result of Akwa-Ibom Northwest senatorial election and attempting to foist the APC and its rejected candidate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, on the people, is a huge lesson for compromised individuals working for the APC to subvert the will of the people.
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“The PDP asserts that the long arm of the law will soon catch up with other corrupt returning officers, including some shameless professors who were heavily bribed and compromised by the APC to alter results and rig it into power at various levels in the 2019 general elections.
“It is shameful that individuals who had attained the peak of enviable career in the academia could submit themselves as willing tools in the hands of a fraudulent, debased and manipulative political party, like the APC, to alter election results and subvert the collective will of the people in the 2019 elections.
“Such individuals can now see the deplorable situation of economic depression, excruciating hardship, terrorism, killings, kidnapping, social and infrastructural decay, which their fraudulent and unpatriotic action has plunged our nation.
“If these unpatriotic elements had not manipulated our electoral process in favour of APC and allowed the will of the people to prevail, our nation would not have found herself in this sorry state.
“Our party holds that this courageous judgment would stand as a deterrent to the compromised returning officers and a signal to the APC that result alterations will have no space in the 2023 general election.
“Ahead of the off season elections as well as the 2023 general elections, the PDP urges Nigerians and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to remain vigilant as more effort is being made to bring other compromised electoral officers, who brought the present misfortune on our nation, to book.”