INEC nails Akpabio’s coffin, says bid to return to senate ‘Nollywood Fantasy’

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has literally nailed Senator Godswill Akpabio’s political coffin, with regard to his aspiration to return to the Senate in 2023.

INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Akwa Ibom State, Barrister Mike Igini, said the Commission’s report on the Akwa Ibom North-West (Ikot Ekpene) senatorial ticket, earlier won by a former Deputy Inspector-General of Police, DIG Udum Ekpoudum (retd.), is “final and cannot be reopened again”.

Igini said Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom as well as former senator representing the Akwa Ibom North-West (Ikot Ekpene), did not participate in the primary election and therefore has nothing to do about it.

Akpabio, the immediate past Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, reportedly emerged the winner of a purported re-run primary conducted at the Skill Acquisition Centre, Ikot Ekpene, after polling 478 votes out of 512 accredited delegates for the election.

But speaking on Tuesday at a radio news programme in Uyo, Igini said the re-run primary that led to the emergence of Akpabio as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the district is strange and unknown to law.

According to him, the May 27, 2022 primary, which produced Ekpoudum, subsists because it was neither cancelled nor inconclusive.

Igini described Akpabio’s emergence as nothing but a “Nollywood fantasy.”

The INEC REC said what he knew about Akpabio was that he was the presidential aspirant for the APC who stepped down for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, adding that, even if there was a re-run, it could only be conducted for aspirants that participated in the first primary.

READ: The Paradox in Akpabio’s Anti-Corruption Crusade

He advised politicians contesting the 2023 general election to meticulously study the new provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act as amended, so as not to continue with the hope that things were still the way they were with the repealed 2010 and 2012 Electoral Act.

“By virtue of Section 31 of the 2022 Electoral Act, the only way somebody can be replaced in any form is that we no longer have substitution by political party. What you have now is withdrawal by individual or nominee and or death.

“The law is not saying you should go and kill people so that you can have yourself on the ballot. No. The law is saying that those who have emerged at all levels up to the presidential level, you can decide that you are no longer interested. You can write an application signed by yourself, delivered to your party who will now deliver to INEC, but nobody can shave the political head of another person in his or her absence.

“The report of the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District APC primary as submitted to INEC headquarters in Abuja is final. It is concluded. The train has left the station. The timeline is clear. All those who are in politics should go and study the 2022 Electoral Act very well.

“I hear people talk about substitution. If you look at Section 31 and Section 34 of the Electoral Act, those of you who are still carrying the old idea of the 2010, 2012 Electoral Act in your head, thinking you can substitute wilfully, it is no longer so.

“Then number two is only in the case of death. Even at that, there will now be a fresh primary. This is the new law. So, what we are seeing going on is clearly a misnomer. The re-run can only be conducted between and among those who participated in the first Senatorial election of May 27, 2022 and the Senatorial primary for Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District was not cancelled, was not nullified, was not inconclusive. It was conclusive, it was concluded and the report was written and it is final because you cannot reopen that anymore,” he declared.