Politics
Abe Tasks Ogoni Indigenes On $170m Clean-Up Fund
The Senator representing the Rivers South East in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Abe, has called on Ogoni people to be vigilant in order not to allow the over $170 million paid into Ogoni Trust Fund for purposes of the clean up to be frittered away.
Abe who made the call while speaking at the memorial of late Second Republic Senator, Cyrus Nunieh in Bori, headquarters of Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State said the funds must be used for the expectations of the people.
Abe urged the people to look beyond the Ogoni land cleanup, stressing the need for the people to be united and begin to look at how to keep the area (Ogoni) clean sustainably.
The Senator said the cleanup of Ogoni land could no longer be viewed as mere rhetorics in view of the over $170 million that has been paid into an Ogoni Trust Fund, saying there is no other trust fund that contains such funds in the entire country.
He said, “The cleanup of Ogoni land can no longer, by any stretch of imagination, be viewed as mere rhetorics because as we speak now, over a $170 million, that is a lot of money, has been released and paid into an Ogoni Trust Fund.
“In this entire nation, there is no Trust Fund that contains that amount of money, except the Ogoni Trust Fund. We (Ogoni people) must however, be vigilant to ensure that this money is not frittered away and that it is absolutely used to the expectations of our people.
“We must be determined to achieve those results. So the rhetorics will now come in the sense of how we actually handle these issues moving forward so that the impact of the cleanup will be felt not just by those who have power and who have access to the instruments of power,” Abe said.
He said one of the ways the Ogoni people could look beyond the present was to see how the values and principles of late Senator Nunieh’s life could impact on their lives, saying, “You look at our society today, we are deficient in honour, deficient in integrity and truth.
“These were the core values of Nunieh’s generation. How do we rebuild that into the present, without these values, a lot of the efforts that we make will end up as mere smokescreen.
“The future is just as important as the present if not more so, because except we provide solid foundation for what comes after, today by itself makes no meaning.
“Beyond cleanup of Ogoniland, we must also begin to look at how to keep Ogoni clean sustainably as we move forward,” Senator Abe stated.
L-R: Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Achebe, Prof. Anya Anya, Senator Ben Obi and PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, during a meeting between Alhaji Abubakar and Ndigbo in Enugu, recently.
Prof. Amupitan gave the warning on Saturday, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during the South-South Zonal Readiness Assessment and Interactive Staff Engagement organised ahead of the 2027 general elections.
He said insecurity remained a potential challenge to the electoral process but stressed that the Commission would not allow threats against its personnel to undermine its constitutional responsibilities.
“Insecurity may pose a challenge, but our collective constitutional resolve is far stronger. Let me again send a clear message from Port Harcourt: anyone who attempts to threaten, intimidate, or harm our ad-hoc staff, NYSC members, or permanent personnel will be brought to justice under the full weight of the law,” he said.
The INEC Chairman, who was accompanied by National Commissioners, directors and technical aides, disclosed that the South-South engagement was the fifth in a series of zonal assessments, following similar exercises in the South-West, North-West, South-East and North-East.
He explained that his physical presence across the geopolitical zones reflected the Commission’s field-first approach, emphasising that electoral integrity must be established through effective operations at the grassroots.
According to him, the assessment would cover operational preparedness across the 123 Local Government Areas in the six South-South states.
On election security, Prof. Amupitan said INEC had moved away from reactive security arrangements traditionally activated around election day to a proactive, intelligence-driven framework known as the “ICCES Tentacle”.
He explained that the framework was designed to extend inter-agency security coordination from national and state headquarters to local government areas and Registration Area Centres, including remote communities.
He identified three critical pillars of the framework as mapping and mitigating security threats, protecting electoral personnel and infrastructure, and guaranteeing safe access to polling units.
The INEC boss said the security arrangement would provide comprehensive protection for electoral personnel, technological infrastructure, including Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices and server infrastructure, as well as voters.
He added that the framework was intended to ensure that every polling unit, irrespective of its geographical location or history of security challenges, remained safe and accessible for the exercise of democratic rights.
Prof. Amupitan disclosed that the South-South security architecture comprised approximately 60 major operational formations, headquarters and state commands operating under the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).
The network, he said, brings together military, naval, air, police and other security and intelligence agencies across the six states.
“Together, this integrated multi-agency network represents the operational backbone that guarantees intelligence-led protection across every riverine creek, coastal axis, and land-based polling unit in the Niger Delta,” he stated.
Providing an overview of the region’s electoral significance, the INEC Chairman said the South-South had the fourth-largest voting bloc in the country, with 15,823,550 registered voters, representing 15.30 per cent of the national register.
Rivers State alone, he said, accounts for 3,736,434 registered voters spread across the 23 local government areas.
Alhaji Abubakar made the demand following revelations that some INEC registration officers allegedly abused their access to the voter registration system to introduce irregular records into the database.
In a statement issued by his Director of Strategic Communications, Mr Phrank Shaibu, the former vice-president described the development as a serious breach of the Commission’s internal safeguards and raised concerns about the integrity of the electoral process.
He urged INEC to identify the officials implicated in the alleged misconduct and explain what disciplinary or legal measures had been taken against them.
Alhaji Abubakar also called for an independent forensic audit of the preliminary voters’ register to establish the scale of the alleged manipulation, identify affected records and determine how the questionable entries were introduced into the system.
He further insisted that INEC preserve all relevant voter records, image files, system access logs and electronic audit trails to prevent the destruction or alteration of evidence before an independent examination could be conducted.
The former vice-president also demanded that the Commission disclose the identities of companies contracted to produce sensitive election materials ahead of the 2027 polls, arguing that transparency was essential to building public confidence in the electoral process.
INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, had earlier disclosed during a television interview that some registration officers across the country allegedly used their official login credentials to introduce irregularities into the voters’ database.
Dr Bayode explained that the Commission’s Automated Biometric Identification System helped identify questionable records and establish how some irregularities entered the system.
He, however, clarified that not all suspicious photographs were AI-generated, as some resulted from poor registration procedures.
The development followed public concerns over suspected AI-generated photographs, alleged duplicate entries and other inconsistencies discovered in the preliminary voters’ register published online on October 26, 2026.
INEC has maintained that the published document is a preliminary register and that it is reviewing questionable records ahead of the certification of the final Register of Voters.
The controversy has intensified calls for greater transparency and accountability in the management of the voters’ register as preparations gather momentum for the 2027 general elections.
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