Electoral Fraud: PDP Salutes Court For Jailing APC Rigging Prof
Says more to face sanctions
BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has saluted the courage of Nigerian judiciary for standing with the people to sentence one of the corrupt returning officers, who connived with the All Progressive Congress (APC), to rewrite election results during the 2019 general elections.
The party said the three years jailed term slammed on 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.”
According to the PDP, “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.”
A statement by the party National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said; “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.”
Specifically, the PDP maintained 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.”
Referring to off season elections as well as the 2023 general elections, the nation’s main opposition party urged Nigerians and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to “remain vigilant as more efforts are being made to bring other compromised electoral officers, who brought the present misfortune on our nation, to book.”
