The senate president served as governor of Akwa Ibom from
2007 to 2015 and was also elected senator representing Akwa Ibom north-west in
2015 on the platform of the PDP.

Akpabio spoke during the plenary on Wednesday as a bill
seeking to repeal the Electoral Act 2022 and enact a new Electoral Bill 2025
passed second reading in the senate.

He recalled that irregularities and manipulation
characterised elections under the PDP-led administration.

“You will agree with me that since PDP left, the elections
have improved tremendously in this country,” Akpabio said.

“I’ve been close to most of the presidents since 1999. And I
recall in 2007, when I won as a governor, our then president, may he still rest
in peace, President Yar’Adua, had to come out publicly to say that the election
that brought him as president was totally flawed. He said it was full of
inconsistencies and rigging.”

The senate president said subsequent administrations have
since “blocked the holes” that made electoral fraud possible in the past.

He described the controversy over the interpretation of
“two-thirds of the states and the FCT” in the 2023 presidential election as
unnecessary.

“So now, imagine this last election. We had to go up to
supreme court, arguing as to whether winning the federal capital territory was
the only reason why you should become president,” he said.

“Instead of FCT being counted as a state for the purpose of
calculation, the two-thirds, people were saying, no, win FCT and then you have
won the presidency.

So, you can lose in 36 states of the federation, but once
you win FCT, you have become president. And they wasted time. They had panels
upon panels in different television studios. And at the end of the day, we got
to the supreme court and back.”

Akpabio said the new legislation aims to “block the
loopholes” and strengthen Nigeria’s electoral system against manipulation.

“We must find a way to block the loopholes of such
occurrences so that we can have a better electoral system,” he added.