SENATOR AKON EYAKENYI HAS NOT SPONSORED ANY BILL IN THE STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

For the sake of innocent members of the public, some of whom have inundated the office of the Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State with enquiries about a certain Bill purportedly pending in the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly and falsely credited to the Deputy Governor as the initiator or sponsor, let me state categorically that Her Excellency, Senator (Dr) Akon Eyakenyi hasn’t sponsored any Bill in the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly or anywhere else currently and she’s not even aware of the existence of the said Bill, which is the subject of the fake news currently trending on social media.

In any case, as a member of the State Executive Council, the Deputy Governor doesn’t enjoy the luxury of personally sponsoring Bills without passing same through the Council for transmission to the Legislature by the Governor or his assigned agent.

It is noteworthy that the spurious report about the imaginary Bill neither emanated from the official communication channels of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly nor Akwa Ibom State Government.

Members of the public are hereby enjoined to discountenance the fake news in its entirety while cultivating the habit of exploring official channels of communication to ascertain the veracity of controversial reports before attaching any weight to them.

Omen Bassey

Press Secretary,

Office of the Deputy Governor

Akwa Ibom State.

**A Rumour That Collapses on Contact With the Constitution**

It is not merely unfair to allege that Dr. Akon Eyakenyi sponsored a bill on extramarital affairs in Akwa Ibom. It is institutionally illiterate. The claim that circulated in January 2026—that she sponsored legislation sending women to prison for ten years for relationships with married men, while fining the men ₦2 million—was denied by her office, the state government, and the House of Assembly.

Independent fact-checkers found no such bill. The story began as a Facebook post, not as a gazette, an order paper, or a first reading.

Start with the machinery of government, which the rumour simply ignores. A deputy governor does not walk a private bill into the House of Assembly.

She sits on the State Executive Council. Executive bills go through Council, then to the legislature through the governor or a designated agent.

Lawmakers sponsor private members’ bills. Eyakenyi is neither a member of the Assembly nor constitutionally positioned to “sponsor” a bill in the way the post described.

To believe the allegation, one must first believe that Nigeria’s separation of powers was suspended for a morality panic.

It was not. The Assembly said it had neither received nor considered any such bill. That should have ended the conversation.

Then look at the person being accused. Eyakenyi’s public record is education, housing, commerce, the Senate, and now the deputy governorship. Her known legislative work as a senator included institutional questions such as a Coast Guard bill, not bedroom statutes with cartoon penalties.

Nothing in her career suggests a sudden conversion into the author of a gendered penal code that jails women and invoices men.

The rumour also misspelled and mishandled her identity in circulation. Fabrications that cannot even keep the sponsor’s name straight are not intelligence. They are content.

The substance of the invented bill is itself a giveaway. Ten years without option of fine for women; a cash penalty for men. That is not how a serious executive drafts law. It is how a viral post manufactures outrage: pick a prominent woman, attach a sexually charged “protection of marriage” story, and wait for shares.

In Nigerian digital politics, female office-holders are especially useful targets for this genre. The first elected female deputy governor of Akwa Ibom is an easy hook. The lie does not need a paper trail. It only needs a moral panic and a name people already recognise.

As a political analyst I have to be blunt in my assertions . Suspicion is not analysis. An allegation that contradicts the constitution, is denied by every relevant institution, has no bill number, no committee stage, and no reputable reporting behind it is not a “controversy.” It is noise. Treating it as a live question about Eyakenyi’s character or agenda gives the rumour the dignity it never earned.

The ridiculous part is not that someone posted it. The ridiculous part is that anyone still treats it as something a deputy governor might actually have done.

Pamela O.