Police have yet to charge APC president with forgery, two months after indictment

The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State, Stephen Ntukekpo, has yet to be charged with forgery, despite being charged by a police investigation.

Mr. Ntukekpo, backed by a former Niger Delta affairs minister, Godswill Akpabio, used forged documents to secure a judgment that ousted Austin Ekanem, the man who was duly elected APC president in Akwa Ibom. /p >

The police investigation report issued on July 4 by the legal section of the Force Headquarters, Abuja, confirmed that Mr. Ntukekpo had falsified his party documents, which gave the impression that he was It was he, and not Mr. Ekanem, who had been elected president of the APC. in Akwa Ibom.

The report recommended that Mr. Ntukekpo be prosecuted for forgery and impersonation.

Police, however, have yet to charge Mr. Ntukekpo, two months later, fueling speculation of a cover-up.

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted the spokesperson for the force's headquarters, Muyiwa Adejobi, on September 5 to find out the progress of the case, he promised to get back to our reporter . But he had not done so at the time of filing this report.

The tampering of Mr. Ntukekpo and the subsequent removal of Mr. Ekanem as President of the APC in Akwa Ibom has led to an intractable crisis in the party, which almost prevents it from having a candidate for the governorship in the state for the 2023 elections.

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr. Ntukekpo in May, he did not deny that the documents he presented to the court were forged.

He said the APC, not him, could tell whether the documents were forged or not.

"I did not author, fabricate, or produce in any form or fashion the so-called congress results sheet. I was just a wannabe like no other. anyone else,” he said.

The counterfeiting investigation was prompted by a complaint from Yusuf Banki, the head of the APC panel that led the APC state congress at which Mr. Ekanem was elected chairman of the went to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

Mr. Banki had complained that his signature had been forged in the documents, which proclaimed Mr. Ntukekpo as the elected president of the APC in Akwa Ibom.

"You can only lie to a dead person, you cannot lie to a living person. I am alive and no one can lie to me.

“The person who forged my signature will be arrested and prosecuted,” Mr. Banki said of Mr. Ntukekpo.

The former minister, Mr. Akpabio, to date has not commented on the forgery case against Mr. Ntukekpo.

Meanwhile, Ita Enang, former special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari for Niger Delta affairs, said Mr Akpabio may have deliberately triggered the APC crisis in Akwa Ibom to prevent the party to have a candidate for governor.

"The truth is that he (Akpabio) had told people on March 26 in Eagle Square (Abuja) during a convention to elect a new party leadership that Akwa Ibom would not have a candidate (in gubernatorial) in the (2023) election.

"So he had already planned for this to create a situation where no one else would show up, either as a candidate or a senator or whatever, so whenever they want to talk of APC in the state, he will be the greatest person, having been a former governor,” Mr. Enang, a former senator, told PREMIUM TIMES in July.

Jackson Udom, a media aide to Mr. Akpabio, said they would not respond to "hearsay" from Mr. Enang.

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