INEC arraigns Uniuyo Professor over electoral fraud

A lecturer at the University of Uyo, Professor Ignatius Uduk has been arraigned at Akwa Ibom State High Court 9 sitting in Uyo, the state capital on Thursday, January 20, on charges bordering on electoral fraud.

Prof. Uduk who was engaged by the Independent and National Electoral Commission as a Collation/Returning Officer for the Essien Udim State Constituency on March 9th, 2019 governorship and house of assembly elections, is facing a three-count charge bordering on publishing and announcing false electoral results.

Uduk and one other Uniuyo professor had been charged to court for electoral fraud. While Professor Peter Ogban was convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment, Professor Uduk’s case suffered repeated adjournments, in the course of which the judge in charge of the case was replaced by a new trial judge.

At the resumed sitting, the three charges were read to the defendant but he pleaded not guilty to all of them.

The prosecuting counsel then called his first witness, a staff of INEC, who was also cross-examined by the defense counsel.

The trial judge, Justice Bassey Nkanang thereafter adjourned the case to January 25 for the continuation of cross-examination.

Background

Mr Uduk was an ad-hoc official of INEC and the returning officer for the Essien Udim State Constituency election.

In a hand-written report to INEC, Mr Uduk said he was “compelled” to declare election results not collated by him, but by undisclosed persons who handed them to him.

“However, in another deposition, this time in a typed written statement on oath, Prof Uduk, driven in a dark tinted vehicle to the Election Tribunal venue, surprisingly stood as a witness against the Commission, to defend the same election results he did not collate but were given to him by undisclosed persons,” INEC had said in a statement.

Mr Uduk, before now, had refused to appear before a panel set up by INEC to investigate the alleged election fraud. He even threatened, through his lawyer, to sue INEC if the election commission continued to “pester” him with an invite to appear before the panel.

Another professor, Peter Ogban, in the same university, was similarly arraigned for election fraud in November, for allegedly trying to help a former senator, Godswill Akpabio, win re-election.

Mr Akpabio, who is now the minister of Niger Delta Affairs, lost the election to the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate, Chris Ekpenyong, a former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State.

This is the first time ever that INEC will be prosecuting two professors for fraud.