Court of Appeal in Calabar has upheld the conviction of Professor Peter Ogban, a soil science professor at the University of Calabar, for manipulating election results in favour of Senator Godswill Akpabio during the 2019 Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial election.
Gatekeepers News reports that Ogban, who served as the returning officer, was sentenced to three years in prison and fined N100,000 by the Akwa Ibom State High Court in March 2021 for altering election results to benefit the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The appellate court affirmed the trial court’s judgment, stating that Ogban’s actions directly compromised the integrity of the electoral process.
Despite Ogban’s claims that he merely collated results provided by local government officers, the court found him guilty of electoral malpractice, according to Premium Times.
In a related development, another academic, Professor Ignatius Uduk of the University of Uyo, was sentenced to three years in prison in February 2025 for falsifying election results in the 2019 state house of assembly election in Akwa Ibom north-west. Uduk was also fined N100,000 for publishing false election results.
