The bid to recall Dino Melaye from the Nigeria Senate has finally crashed as only 5.34 per cent of the total 188,500 signatories to his recall petition were verified in an exercise held on Saturday.
The result of the verification released early Sunday in Lokoja by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) showed that 39,285 of the signatories were verified, out of which only 18,762 signatures were genuine.
The genuine signatories represent a dismal 5.34 per cent of the total signatories to the petition, which fell short of 51 per cent or 98,364 signatures required for the petition to sail through.
It was observed that the verification failed largely due to fictitious and forged signatures and names of dead persons affixed to the recall petition by its promoters.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that some electorate in the Kogi West senatorial district had on June 24, 2017 submitted a petition to recall Melaye to the headquarters of the INEC in Abuja.
One Mr Cornelius Olowo led the petitioners to submit the recall petition which alleged poor representation as one of the reasons for the move to recall Melaye.
However, INEC’s presiding officer for the verification exercise, Prof. Okente Morthy, of the University of Abuja said that the number of signatures verified fell short of the number required.
He consequently gave the breakdown of the results of the verification exercise which took place in 552 polling units in seven local government areas in Kogi West senatorial district.
