The Akwa Ibom State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini has described the failure of the defence counsel to the University Professor accused of electoral fraud to enter his case as a strategy to frustrate and kill the case.
He added that the commission is not helpless by the tactics stressing that there is a limit to which the tactics can be allowed.
It could be recalled that Prof Ignatius Uduk, a professor of Physical and Health Education who was the Collation and Returning Officer for the 2019 Essien Udim State Constituency election, is standing trial for allegedly announcing and publishing false election results.
Uduk’s Counsel, Abasiodiong Ekpenyong failed to enter his case after the presiding judge, Justice Bassey Nkanang had dismissed a no-case submission he filed before the court and ordered that he has a case to answer.
However, instead of entering his defence on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, the defence counsel appeared in court to inform it that he has filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal in Calabar, challenging an earlier judgement of the court which dismissed his no-case submission.
Justice Nkanang refused the application of the lawyer on grounds that no leave either of the trial or the appellate Court was obtained before the said appeal.
The presiding judge had recused himself from the hearing of the matter and asked the chief judge of the state, Justice Ekaette Obot, to reassign the case.
While answering questions from journalists in Uyo on Saturday, the Resident Commissioner of INEC, Igini, expressed worry that a case that was instituted in 2020 against the professor is still lingering because the defence lawyer has deployed all sorts of “shenanigans to avoid defence,” adding that he is not bothered with traffic.
According to him, “I want to say here in respect to what happened at court that we are not frustrated, let me say that those in public office who have sworn to an oath to do right to all, saddled with the kind of job we do, who are committed to due process of law can never be bothered by traffic because we know what it takes.
“We are talking about due process, we cannot be frustrated because we have chosen the path of due process, we are not worried about traffic. All that we need to do and we have done is to register through a petition and complaint to the CJ, to chronicle how we got to this point.
“Justice is all, not only two way directional, justice is three-way directional-justice to the commission, the prosecution; justice to the accused and more importantly, justice to the society whose roles have been pummeled and violated. So, what we are interested in is that justice must be done.
“The matter that was filed with that of Professor Peter Ogban in 2020, this is 2022. The defence counsel has deployed all manners of shenanigans to avoid defence from arguing that we need to choose a lawyer for the commission, which is an aberration. The CJ reassigned the matter from Justice Archibong to erudite judge, Justice Bassey Nkanang, who has been presiding over the matter and we have made tremendous progress, to the extent that the prosecution through the lawyer, Clement Onwuenwunor SAN, called in five witnesses and tendered avalanche of documents to prove our case.
“Five months after the prosecution had closed his case the defence had failed to enter his case by coming up with all manner of frivolous objections to avoid opening his defence. I must say that there are limits to some of these shenanigans.
“But the court in deference to section 36, about fair hearing, has somehow indulged and allowed all these to go on, which is to allow the defence exhaust and defend himself, but what he is doing is not to defend himself but to frustrate and kill the case. Since 2020, the idea is to frustrate and kill the case so that justice will not be done”