Bassey Akpan, the lawmaker representing Akwa Ibom Northeast district under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP has lost his senatorial seat.
A Federal High Court in Abuja sacked the senator while declaring his seat vacant and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to conduct a bye-election to fill it within 14 days. Akpan had defected from the PDP in July 2022 as a result of unresolved grievances from the party’s governorship primary election in Akwa Ibom State.
He moved to the Young Progressive Party, YPP and notified the Senate President of his defection from the PDP. PDP sued Akpan and asked the court to declare his seat vacant by virtue of the provisions of sections 68(1), and 62(b) of the Nigerian constitution affirmed by a plethora of Supreme Court decisions.
After his defection, he emerged the Governorship candidate for the YPP in the forthcoming general election. In the judgment given by the court, the judge, Fadima Aminu, ruled that he was not qualified to retain the seat after resigning from the party which sponsored his election to the Senate for a four-year tenure in 2019.
He was ordered to stop parading himself as a senator and also fined a sum of N5million which would be paid to PDP which sued him over his defection to the YPP. The judge declared that the two-term senator, failed in his obligation to prove that his defection from PDP was necessitated by serious rancor and steep differences in the ranks of the party.
Akpan has had it rough in the course of his political journey. He has a few controversies against his name which has continuously put his character to question. He was arrested and arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC for corruption charges in 2022.
He was sentenced to 42 years imprisonment for receiving exotic cars worth over N200M from a contractor. However, he was granted bail on health grounds pending the determination of an appeal.
In 2018, charges were filed against him for failing to declare his true assets after an investigation by the Special Presidential Investigation Panel on the Recovery of Public Property (SPIP) accused him of failing to disclose the true cost of several houses owned by him. Though he labeled the charges a plot to tarnish his image which he stated was bound to fail.
