Akpabio defends INEC Chairman, Amupitan, over alleged tweet, says opposition sponsoring insecurity
President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has defended INEC chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, over the controversy surrounding an X account allegedly operated by Amupitan, in which he was adjudged to have shown bias in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He dismissed the claims of bias as unfounded, arguing that even if Amupitan liked a tweet in favour of APC or made the statement, ‘victory is sure’, it was done when he was a lecturer and not Chairman of INEC.
Akpabio also poked the opposition as sponsoring the recent surge in insecurity across Nigeria, stressing that it was politically motivated and related to the 2027 general elections.
Akpabio spoke on Tuesday while delivering a goodwill message at the inauguration of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) headquarters.
He praised President Bola Tinubu for his transformative leadership which has attracted more membership to the APC.
“You’re seeing insecurity today, and it’s even increasing because the election is coming. As soon as election is over, for the first two weeks you will not hear a single bomb blast because people are sponsoring it to distract you, and they don’t know what else to do, and they say this man is too good in many areas,” he said amid applause.
On the growing depletion of opposition parties to , he said: “If the governors are attracted to him because he’s taking good care of the states. He came in with 18 governors, and today he has almost 32 governors under his fold out of 36. So, where do we belong?
“How do you win an election when you don’t have a structure? No political party is stable again in this country. Then they change and attack the people going to do the election. Then they brought out a tweet where the INEC chairman said, ‘Victory is sure,’ but he didn’t say victory is sure for APC or PDP. But the man said it’s manipulated and nobody wants to hear.
“For me, whether manipulated or not, he said victory is sure. He was not chairman of INEC then; he was just a lecturer, and anybody can support whoever he wishes to.”