By Mumini AbdulKareem
More facts emerged last night on the factors that played out in Kogi State during the failed recall process of Senator Dino Melaye.
Melaye’s constituent in Kogi West Senatorial district rejected the process yesterday when only 5.34 per cent of the people turned up for the exercise which has been a subject of litigation between the embattled senator and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
A kinsman of Melaye who spoke on condition of anonymity and a former House of Reps member exclusively told National Pilot last night from Lokoja that the Okun people considered the process an affront on their collective responsibility and decided to support their man(Dino).
According to him, they saw the issue as a tussle between Okun and Ibira (Dino and Governor Bello respectively) and they rallied round the senator this time.
He said “What happened was that there was the compelling need to save we the Okun people in Kogi that shame it would have been brought upon us because we saw it not as Dino’s issue but an Okun issue.
“Lots of people saw it that the recall process was engineered by Governor Yahaya Bello and we believed he is not performing and an enemy of the Okun people. So whether Dino is good or bad, was not an issue in this case. If it had succeeded, it would have been the case of an Ibira man sitting in Okene in his hometown and remote-controlled us to send one of our own packing, so we decided to work to ensure that the process did not work in order to sustain our dignity. That is just it”,
He said it was the same Bello who denied another Okun man, Hon James Abiodun Faleke from becoming the Governor then and now he wants to also do same to Dino.
“That one is still fresh in our memory and for us to also join forces with him to remove our own son will be double tragedy. The Governor was thinking the power of money would do the job for him”, he submitted.
The source, who confirmed that the Governor actually spent huge sum of money for the exercise said he had more than two friends whose names appeared in the recalled registrar and were signed against by unknown persons while they were in Abuja.
He however said it may be a different ball game during the 2019 elections in the state as the present narratives may not play out.
…suspected govt house thugs storm INEC office, escape with results sheet
The recall verification of the Senator Dino Melaye initially suffered a setback as suspected hoodlums from the Kogi State Government House attacked INEC office in Mopamuro Local Government, disrupting the collation of results, shooting in the air, damaging vehicles and escaping with results sheets, while the INEC staff fled for safety.
One of the INEC officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, alleged that the hoodlums were political thugs who accompanied an aide of Governor Yahaya Bello to the INEC office to challenge the outcome of the exercise as it did not favour them.
Recall that in Mopamuro LG of the North-Central state, the exercise recorded a very low turnout of petitioners.
Between 70-80 per cent of the petitioners in all the 10 wards in the council failed to come out to verify their signatures.
The exercise, which lasted for six hours from 8am to 2pm, was very peaceful, free, fair and credible as the scanty petitioners were seeing verifying their signature with low turnout.
In Ward 01 (Units: 001; 002; 003), Ward 03 (Units: 01; 02; and some other units in other wards, only 20 to 25 per cent of the petitioners were recorded as counted by the poll officers.
However, one polling unit each in Ward 06 and 07, Orokere and Takete-Ide respectively recorded 40 and 45 per cent turnout while only one polling unit recorded 90 per cent turnout (103 out of 110 petitioners.
Many voters expressed their displeasure over the appearance of their names on the recall register, saying they were shocked because they never at anytime signed any document for Melaye’s recall.
One of the voters at Ward 06, unit 04, Mrs Funmilayo Ojo, said that she was surprised to see her name among the petitioners, saying “it shall not be well with the perpetrators of such act”.
…my dead daughter’s name on petition – Constituent
The verification exercise conducted for the purpose of recalling Dino Melaye, was marred by discrepancies and low turnout of petitioners.
A man simply identified as Thomas said the name of his daughter, who died in 2016, appeared on the petition.
“I had a bad experience today. The evil men behind Dino’s (Melaye) recall open up my old wounds. The name of my late daughter, Miss Thomas Faith, who died on 18 July 2016 at the Federal Medical Centre in Lokoja, was among the petitioners. Her name is number 729 on that evil list. Her voter’s card is still with me, how do (sic) they got the VIN number? Was it her ghost that came to sign without the voter’s card? Whosoever did this will see hell,” Thomas was quoted to have said.
While it is unclear if this was not a case of more than one person having the same name, other alleged petitioners have equally denied signing the petition.
Many of the purported petitioner have accused Mr. Yahaya Bello, Governor of Kogi State, of being behind the attempt to recall Mr. Melaye.
… ex-judge, businessmen, deceased persons signed register
When last year, Dino Melaye, raised the alarm that some of the signatures collated for his recall were those of dead persons, not many people took him seriously.
The senator had said: “Let me also sound it that here in Lokoja local government council, several others whose names and signatures appeared on the list of the signatories to this failed exercise were identified and known to us as being dead long before.”
The issue died down after a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to suspend the process.
However, following another court ruling, INEC began the process of verifying the “188,000 signatures” of constituents who were said to have signed the recall petition, on Saturday.
When The Cable visited some of the polling units, it was discovered that while some of the names on the register were not signed, some of the names on the register were those of people who are dead.
At polling unit 6, ward A, some constituents said they could identify names of the dead on the recall register.
One of such “deceased” persons was Musa Umoru with voter card number: 90F5B04920295994341, said to have died “for more than five years” and whose profile reads ‘business.’
Another is Abubakar Ameh, said to have died three years ago, with the voter card number: 90F5B049202955134330 also into “business”; well as Abubakar Zainab, with voter card number: 90F5B04920295430341, said to have died two years ago.
There is also one Mohammed Okoko, a former judge who, according to the constituents, died in 2014, and whose name was featured on the register.
Also, some of the names on the register did not have accompanying signatures or thumbprints. Among those in this category are Abu Hassana, Nelson Sunday and Mgbede Sunday.
At polling unit 6, ward A, Abu Hassana and Abu Saratu, whose names were following each other, had one fingerprint against their names, same with Achimugu Katrine and Achimugu Abraham.
Ahmed Biambo, head, voter education and publicity, at INEC office in Kogi, had not responded to inquiries made by The Cable as of the time this report was filed.
…forces of evil ‘ll never triumph – Melaye
Dino Melaye, has thanked his people for standing by him in the bid to recall him from the national assembly adding that forces of evil will never triumph over forces of light.
Reacting yesterday, Melaye promised his supporters that he would not let them down.
“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,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Every lie has an expiry date. Forces of evil will never triumph over forces of light. God is with us.”
The lawmaker is currently at the National Hospital, Abuja, after sustaining injuries when he jumped out of a moving police vehicle conveying him to a court in Lokoja, Kogi state, for an alleged gun running case.
The senator’s constituents were said to have submitted a petition to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last year, seeking his recall from the upper legislative chamber.
The lawmaker had challenged the move to oust him in court but two months ago, an appellate court sitting in Abuja gave INEC the nod to continue with the process.
Consequently, INEC released a timetable for his recall and the verification of signatures was scheduled for Saturday but the exercise was marred by low turnout.
At the end, INEC announced that out of the 189,870 signatories to the petition, only 18,742 were verified. The verified signatories represent 5.34 percent of the 351,146 registered voters in Kogi west, thereby not meeting the required criteria.
For the verification exercise to succeed, over 50 per cent plus one of the signatories to the petition had to be verified.
…Gov Bello, APC react
Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello said on Sunday that his political future would not be undermined by the victory of his arch political rival, Dino Melaye.
“The governor is not in any way connected to the exercise,” said, Petra Onyegbule, the spokesperson for the governor.
“That it is going to affect the governor’s political future is a very myopic thinking.”
Although Mr Bello did not publicly participate in the campaign to recall Melaye, the senator’s ability to survive the recall exercise despite being bedridden in the lead up to Saturday has made some commentators see it as a loss for the governor.
Come 2019 and going by the extrapolated figures Gov Bello will score less than 17 per cent of the total votes in Kogi.
Similarly, the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State, Haddy Ametuo, in his reaction to the development said, “some ghosts “initiated the recall process against Sen. Dino Melaye.
Ametuo, who stated this in a statement issued in Lokoja, yesterday on the botched recall process, expressed delight that the efforts had come to a premature end through the collective will of the people of Kogi West Senatorial District.
“Melaye, the only senator our party has in Kogi State, won with 94.66 per cent leaving the remaining 5.34 per cent to the petitioners.
“The messages are very clear; that Senator Melaye is the most popular senator ever produced by Kogi West,” the statement said.
According to the chairman, this is a sign of what to expect in the 2019 general elections.
“No amount of financial inducement and coercion will change the will of the people of Kogi State in future elections,” he said.
The APC Chairman commended the high level of neutrality and transparency displayed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other stakeholders throughout the exercise.
Ametuo called on the petitioners and Mr Melaye as well as his followers to embrace peace and heed the voice of God “because the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
He insisted that the APC still remains the most viable alternative for good governance in the state.
