With just a few hours to the presidential election, the Governor of Akwa Ibom state, Godswill Akpabio, is said to have finalised a series of plans to manipulate today’s presidential and legislative elections in his state in favour of President Goodluck Jonathan and other candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Governor Godswill Akpabio
A credible security source revealed to Sahara Reporters on Friday that the governor had bribed the resident electoral commissioner in Akwa Ibom state, Austin Okogie, with N2 billion to persuade him to discard real results from the polling units and use the ones to be manufactured by the governor’s ICT experts.
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The source also revealed that the governor has converted a guesthouse in the state’s newly constructed Government House on Willington Bassey Way, Uyo into an election operational base/situation room to coordinate the electoral plot.
The source said Akpabio had recruited some well-trained ICT experts to man the room, adding that all the PDP agents at polling units across the state have been given mobile phones.
He said the highly paid agents were told to use the phones to send text messages of the total number of accredited voters in the various polling units to the situation room.
“Once they receive the number of accredited voters, the ICT experts at the situation room will allocate votes to political parties/candidates irrespective of the actual votes cast. They will then write fake results on the original result sheets which Governor Akpabio has obtained from the REC [Resident Electoral Commission],” the source said.
He said Okogie had demanded N2.5 billion for the deal, adding that Akpabio accepted on the condition that the balance of N500 million would be delivered today after polls close.
It was gathered that in a bid for Okogie to cover his tracks, he refused to accredit local journalists in the state to cover the elections and made exceptions only for reporters working for the state-owned media houses.
He was said to have accused local journalists in the state of working for the opposition and writing critical reports against him.
“It was just this afternoon that he [Mr. Okogie] succumbed to pressure by the journalists and issued INEC tags to a few of them,” a reporter said.
However, when suspicion was aroused about Okogie, the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the state on March 24, 2015, petitioned the INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, accusing Okogie, amongst others, of lodging in Devok Hotel in Uyo which is owned by the governor’s wife, Ekaette Unoma Akpabio.
Another source revealed that one state commissioner expressed fears of the possibility that the fake results manufactured out of the situation room might not tally with the ones from polling units, but another commissioner, Emmanuel Enoidem, who has been appointed by Governor Akpabio to oversee the running of the situation room, dismissed such fears.
Enoidem said: “the important thing is to get INEC to announce the results and that whoever is aggrieved can then go to court.”
According to our source, Akpabio’s original plan was to clone permanent voter cards (PVCs), but he abandoned that option when the INEC chairman, Jega, vowed that such attempts would be futile.
The source said Akpabio plan will result in President Jonathan and other candidates of the PDP having between 95 and 100% of the votes.
Akpabio has boasted on several occasions that Akwa Ibom state would give President Jonathan 100% of votes cast at the polls.
Meanwhile, the Delta state governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, alongside a former governor of Edo state Oserheimen Osunbor, and the current governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Benue state, Terhemen Tazoor, have been indicted by the National Human Rights Commission for perpetrating electoral fraud.
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