The Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Senator Dino Melaye on Sunday thanked the people of Kogi West for standing by him throughout his ordeal in the hands of those who he said wanted him out of the red chamber to satisfy their ego.
Recall that on Saturday 28th April, 2018, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) embarked on signatures verification exercise as part of the recall process for the senator.
However, the recall verification exercise of the senator failed after the verified signatories to the petition for his recall fell short of requirements.
For the verification exercise to succeed, 50 percent plus one of the signatories to the petition had to be verified.
According to the results announced by Professor Ukertor Gabriel Moti, the Declaration Officer for the exercise held in the senatorial district on Saturday, only 18,742 of the 189,870 of the signatories to the petition for the Senator’s recall were verified by INEC representing 5.34%.
Reacting to the outcome of exercise from his hospital bed in Abuja, Senator Melaye thanked the people for the confidence reposed on him promising not to let them down.
Melaye who spoke through his twitter account, while praying God’s blessings on his constituents, he assured of standing by the truth and the people at all time.
In his words, “Thank you my people. God bless you all. Thank you for the confidence reposed on me. I will not let you down. I will always stand by the truth and the people at all times. God bless Kogi west”.
Earlier in another twit, he mocked those behind his recall saying,” Every lie has an expiry date. Forces of evil will never triumph over forces of light. God is with us”.
Thousands of voters from the senator’s constituency had petitioned INEC in 2017 to demand for his recall, but the move had suffered a setback as a result of conflicting orders of the court.
Following series of legal tussles between the lawmaker and the electoral body, the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal cleared the coast for INEC on March 16, 2018, to continue with the recall process.
In the lead judgement read by Justice Tunde Awotoye, who led two other justices of the Appellate Court, the court held that the 90 days stipulated by the Constitution within which a recall process could take place “has no time limitation”.
In a unanimous decision, the court also dismissed the appeal filed by Senator Melaye against the judgment delivered by Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court in 2017, on grounds that there was no cause of action.
Hours after the ruling was delivered, the lawmaker told Channels Television that he was finalising the process of appealing the judgment at the Supreme Court.
He noted that he would not be intimidated by the Appellate Court ruling and that he would continue to fight for the course of justice in Kogi State and the nation in general.
INEC, on its part, said it would get in touch with Senator Melaye and ask him to give it an agent after which it would conduct a verification exercise for the signatories to the recall petition.
On April 5, the lawmaker approached the Supreme Court, seeking an order restraining the electoral commission from proceeding with his recall from the Senate.
In a notice of appeal filed by Mr. Mike Ozekome, he sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining INEC from commencing or further continuing with his recall process or acting on the purported petition presented to the electoral body by some of his purported constituents.
Melaye also asked the Supreme Court to set aside the judgement of the Court of Appeal which ordered INEC to commence with the recall process.
While the apex court has yet to rule on the matter, INEC has proceeded with the process with the meeting of stakeholders which held on Wednesday in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital.
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