THE Court of Appeal in Calabar has upheld the conviction of Peter Ogban, a professor accused of rigging a senatorial election for Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
Ogban, a professor of Soil Science, was jailed for announcing false election results in favour of Akpabio during the 2019 general elections.
According to Premium Times, on Wednesday, a lawyer who participated in the case said the Court of Appeal upheld three-year prison sentence for Ogban for manipulating election results and criticised his actions despite being a university professor.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) prosecuted Ogban for election fraud, and after being found guilty, he pleaded for leniency.
A High Court in Akwa-Ibom State had sentenced the convict to three years in prison for election fraud.
The court, which found Ogban guilty of fraudulent manipulation of election results and announcing false results, also asked the professor to pay a N100,000 fine.
Ogban testified in the trial court that the election results were falsified to favour the APC, with thousands of fake votes added, despite the PDP candidate winning the election.
During the trial, Ogban admitted that he knew the figures on result sheets (forms EC8E1) were taken from results collated at the constituency level (form EC8D1).
When asked to verify the APC’s score in Oruk Anam Local Government Area, he confirmed it was 10,534 votes in the collation sheet (exhibit 2), but there were 15,534 votes in the declared result sheet (exhibit 3), indicating around 5,000 fake votes were added.
Despite this disparity, Ogban claimed he didn’t falsify the results, claiming he only collated results given to him by local government area returning officers.
The judge sentenced him, citing the prosecution’s strong case.
Ogban’s conviction followed a similar case where Ignatius Uduk, a professor, was jailed for three years for election fraud, including announcing false results and perjury, during the 2019 general elections.
A reporter with the ICIR
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