http://blog4all-com..com/2011/09/attempts-by-godswill-akpabio-to-bribe.html

Godswill Akpabio has been known to say that he has Nigeria's judicial system in his pocket. He has also confided to a few members of his kitchen-cabinet that he is ready to mortgage Akwa Ibom State Treasury to make sure that he remains in office for another four years as its Governor.

Sometimes last week, sources say Akpabio made an attempt to bribe at least one of the judges of the Appeal Court in Calabar; the Court is about to issue a ruling on whether it was proper for the Tribunal, which sat in Uyo, to rule in favor of Akpabio over the dispute involving the gubernatorial election of April 26, 2011. Reports say one of the judges rebuffed the offer. However, it is not clear if the offer by Akpabio was flatly rejected by the judge or if it was rejected with a plan to remit the payment to a secret bank account overseas.

It has been confirmed just three days ago, Godswill Akpabio withdrew the sum of N1.5 billion from the Electricity Fund account, an amount which had been ear-marked for the Rural Electrification Program. So far, very few people know exactly where the money is or for what exactly Akpabio has used the money. All people know is that the money is gone and speculations are that Akpabio intends to use it to bribe the Appeal Court judges in order to influence them decide the case in his favor, when the ruling is entered on September 15, 2011.

Analysts that are very familiar with the mechanisms of institutional bribery and corrupt practices in Nigeria have concluded that today's (Tuesday, September 13, 2011) postponement of the ruling by the Appeal Court may not be unconnected with the usual delaying tactics to make sure that Akpabio has deposited the money in various designated bank accounts for the judges.

As of this writing, Akpabio is said to be out of the country. Other than the immediate and very highly trusted members of his cabinet advisers, no one really knows which country he has traveled to, though speculations are that he is in Ghana, while others say he has gone to Germany, where he has a secret money laundering deal with Julius Berger.

Meanwhile, reports are that Akpabio's foot-soldiers and many of his crumbs-from-the-table-eaters have already started jubilating in Akwa Ibom State, especially in Uyo---the State Capital---over the news, which leaked out earlier today, that Akpabio is making plans to compromise the judges.

It could be recalled that bribing the judges of the Appeal Court will not be the first experience in which Akpabio had been known to use the people's money to interfere with judicial process. In a lower court ruling, which sat in Uyo to hear the election disputes of ACN and PDP, a similar speculation that Akpabio had compromised the judges of the Tribunal to rule the case in his favor was also made by the indigenes of the State, an accusation which turned out to be true. At that time, it was alleged that Akpabio paid each of the Tribunal judges as much as N1 billion. No one knows if the speculations were true, but the fact that Akpabio and members of his Cabinet never denied the allegations in public seems to confirm the rumor.

Meanwhile, if the allegations are true that Akpabio is paying-off the judges at the Appeal Court, then all Akwa Ibom people needs to do is to decide what measures they need to take in order to obtain justice for themselves over the issue of Akpabio stealing their mandate and then using their money to thwart the judicial processes.

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