The Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has dismissed moves to recall Senator Dino Melaye and urged his colleagues to remain focused on their beats.
Arguing that the move would fail because of the hard legal and Constitutional provisions to be met by constituents in a recall, Ekweremadu urged his colleagues not to waste their energies in anticipating what he termed a waste of time.
According to him the Senate must be convinced beyond doubt why Melaye is being recalled and section 69 of the 1999 Constitution as amended must be complied with. Section 69 of the 1999 Constitution as amended says those who signed the recall register would have to come out and line up to verify their signatures.
He said that an amendment to the process of recall was effected in 2010 adding that those behind the purported recall of Senator Melaye were only relying on the section of the constitution without taking into reckoning the amendment.
He went on to stress that the reason for the amendment was to ensure that state governors do not become so powerful such that their representatives in the National Assembly could not criticize them.
Melaye had raised a point of order and claimed that some of those who purportedly signed the register were deceived into signing by the “state governor who is the mastermind of the recall.”
“The names and signatures on the recall register was forged by Kogi state officials and Governor Yahaya Bello is the one sponsoring the recall for malicious purposes.
“The total score of both valid and invalid vote of nine candidates is 118,000 but my governor and his appointees in four days claimed that they got over 188,000 signatures.
“No where in my constituency did they sit to receive people’s signatures, they got INEC database for registered voters and copied in one hand writing and forged all the signatures.
“As I speak to you, I have over 120 death certificates issued by the National Population Commission, and these peoples relatives and families have sworn to affidavits but the names of all these dead people appeared on the recall register submitted to INEC.
“Mr President, 116 of my constituents have also sworn to affidavits that their names and signatures, which appeared on the recall register were forged.
“Over 86 of my constituents have stated that they were approached that the government wanted to carry out a fertilizer empowerment program and requested for their PVCs and were thereby deceived into putting their names on the register.
“All these affidavits have been submitted to INEC and the court,” he said.
