The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Akwa Ibom has accused a former governor of the state of bribing an electoral chief to frustrate the party’s petition. The APC alleged that former Governor Godswill Akpabio, now Senator, bribed the INEC Electoral Commissioner in Akwa Ibom, Austin Okojie, with N2.5 billion to frustrate the party’s petition challenging the election of Udom Emmanuel as governor.

In a petition dated July 8 and addressed to the Director General of the Department of State Security Service and the Inspector General of Police, the APC, through its legal counsel, Victor Iyanam, accused Mr. Okojie of collecting the bribe from the former governor to work against its interest and that of its governorship candidate, Okon Umanah, at the tribunal.

Mr. Iyanam alleged that the bribe was paid by the former governor’s government prior to the April elections to compromise the REC and make him feel “obliged to complete the corrupt process by doing everything possible to frustrate the governorship elections petition of the APC candidate.”

He said the APC was compelled to issue the petition after several complaints against the continued refusal by INEC in the state to grant access to the party to inspect election materials, despite the May 12 and 23 as well as June 25, 2015 orders of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal for Akwa Ibom State.

Following allegations of threats to security by the APC, the Federal Government approved the relocation of the tribunal from Uyo to Abuja, while all materials associated with the poll were later also moved to Abuja.

To ensure full compliance with the directive to transfer the election materials to Abuja for the forensic analysis and inspection to be conducted in a free and fair environment, Mr. Iyanam said the tribunal had also ordered that officials of the DSS and police be available during the inspection exercise.

The APC, however, alleged that Okojie neither obeyed any of the orders of the tribunal, nor cooperated with the party to carry out the inspection “principally (due) to the fact that the sum of N2.5 billion was disbursed to him by the previous government of Chief Godswill Akpabio prior to the general elections.”

“The objective of the delay tactics employed by Mr. Okojie on behalf of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is to prevent the APC candidate from using the evidence to effectively prosecute his case at the election tribunal,” Mr. Iyanam said.

Other INEC officials accused by the APC of working against its interest include the Head of the Legal Services department of INEC in Akwa Ibom, Uche Okorie, and his counterpart at the INEC headquarters. The party accused them of conniving to abandon in the rain election materials brought from Uyo to Abuja.

Besides, with formal trial in the petition scheduled to commence on July 14, 2015 and to last only 14 days, Mr. Iyanam said the deliberate delay in completing the forensic inspection of the materials was to ensure that the APC and its candidate would not be able to gather sufficient evidence to prosecute their petition.

The APC accused Mr. Okojie and his officials of working to cause “irreparable damage to the election materials,” as most of the documents brought from Uyo were already destroyed on arrival in Abuja.

“Water was deliberately poured into the bags of materials, while some were kept under the rain, contrary to the established practice of keeping the materials in envelops according to their polling units,” the party said.