\u25cfIt is a hoax; many will be jailed for forgery, says Melaye
\nThe process for the recall of Sen. Dino Melaye is gathering momentum as his constituents, Kogi West Senatorial District, submitted a petition to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) demanding his removal from the Senate, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) \u00a0is reporting.
\nMelaye, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), represents the district at the upper chamber of the National Assembly.
\nLeader of the constituents, Chief Cornelius Olowo, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in INEC headquarters on Wednesday, shortly after submitting the petition, that electorate in Melaye\u2019s constituency were resolved to recall him.
\nBut in his response on Facebook, Melaye found what he described as the “stupidity” of officials of the Kogi State government laughable.
\nHis words: “It can not succeed. It is a hoax and absolute comedy of errors. I\u2019m laughing at the stupidity of Kogi State Government. Many appointees will go to jail for forgery.
\n\u201cEven dead people\u2019s names on the recall register. A governor who does not know what double registration is may not as well know the procedure for recall. Every lie has an expiry date.
\n\u201cThis comedy of errors will soon end. No shaking at all. This won\u2019t solve the problem of not paying salaries for over 15 months. No retreat no surrender. Truth is my only defence.\u201d
\nOlowo said that the petition, which had signatures of more than 52 per cent of the electorate in the area, was submitted at the office of INEC Chairman.
\nHe said that the move to recall Malaye was based on his \u201cabysmal performance\u2019\u2019 since he was elected to represent the district in 2015.
\nHe accused the senator of distancing himself from his constituents, saying that the lawmaker\u2019s performance was low.
\n\u201cIn the last two years, some senators have been meeting with their people quarterly. They update them on what has been happening and seek their contributions on issues and their aspirations to be presented at the senate.
\n\u201cFor the past two years, Sen. Malaye has not organised one town hall meeting anywhere in Kogi West to meet with the people to present his scorecard or stewardship.
\n\u201cHe has been completely disconnected from the people. Since he won his election and the legal battle at the court, he is no longer reachable.
\n\u201cHe has no constituency office in Kogi West as we speak, as a way to reach him on matter of interests from the people that elected him,\u2019\u2019 Olowo said.
\nHe said that the petition had signatures of registered voters in the senatorial district, who endorsed the recall.
\n\u201cWe have over 360,000 registered voters in Kogi West and after about one week of collection of signatures, we were able to gather over 188,500 signatures, endorsing the recall of the senator.
\n\u201cWe have submitted the petition at the office of INEC Chairman. It is now left for INEC to go and do confirmation of the signatures before going on the process needed for the recall,\u2019\u2019 he said.
\nOn the allegation that the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, was sponsoring the recall and that people fought over the money disbursed for the exercise, Olowo said it was untrue.
\nHe said that the genuineness of the demand would be confirmed when INEC would visit the area for confirmation of the signatories.
\nHe expressed optimism that INEC would do what was required of it over the petition.
\nThe Director, Voter Education and Publicity, Mr Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, confirmed the receipt of the petition by the commission.
\n\u201cYes, such petition was submitted today (Wednesday),\u2019\u2019 he told NAN in a short message reply on telephone. (NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u25cfIt is a hoax; many will be jailed for forgery, says Melaye The process for the recall of Sen. Dino Melaye is gathering momentum as his constituents, Kogi West Senatorial District, submitted a petition to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) demanding his removal from the Senate, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) \u00a0is reporting. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}