Kogi West Submits Petition on Melaye’s Recall to INEC

  • Commission to transmit 2019 election results electronically

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The people of Kogi West senatorial district wednesday made good their threat to recall their Senator, Dino Melaye by submitting a letter containing their signatures to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja.

The receipt of the stakeholders from the Kogi West came on the heels of a meeting held by INEC management with the leadership of Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPRCON) where the commission’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said plans are underway to ensure that 2019 election results are transmitted electronically.

Yakubu said: “We are pioneering and we hope to deploy in the 2019 general election a new platform for electronic collation and transmission of the election results.”

Before now, the collation of election results have been done manually with incidences of distortions, ballot box stuffing and snatching marring the process.

The Kogi constituents who stormed the headquarters of INEC in a Toyota bus, brought six bags containing signatures and forms for each of the local government areas in the senatorial district and submitted them to the commission.
The local governments are Ijimu; Kabba/Bunu; Lokoja; Yagba West; Yagba East; and Mopa/Moro.

After the initial protocol, the leader of the team, Hon. Olowo Cornelius, was ushered in to see the chairman INEC, Yakubu, along with few others.

Addressing journalists after their meeting with INEC chairman, Cornelius told journalists that they have been able gather 52.3 per cent more than the constitutionally required 50.1 per cent signatories.

Explaining the procedure taken to arrive at the signatories, he said polling centres were setup where electorate came with their voter cards to indicate their interest.

According to him, it took one week for them to collate the results from the polls.
On whether the whole process was sponsored by the state Governor, Yahaya Bello, Cornelius denied it, stating that they decided to embark on the recall of the senator because, “he had become inaccessible and unreachable and was not representing them responsibility.”

He said while it was normal for people to think that the governor had a hand in the senator’s travail, he explained that the governor is not from the senator’s constituency.

“The governor is not from Kogi West, he has no role in the matter. He is from another senatorial district and he has his own senator. I know people say the enemy of my enemy is my friend but in this case, what we are seeing is the determination of the people.”

He claimed that the senator has became held a town hall meeting in the constituency since he become senator nor attracted any constituency project for them.

“We are not satisfied with his representation in the Senate. The people know who is representing them well. The senate is a place for responsible people not for rancour and tyranny. The people of Kogi West have had to bear with him for two years. Two years is enough to assess a senator. We are at a stage of a journey of no return,” he said.

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