Senate mocks INEC’s exercise to recall Melaye

The Senate, on Tuesday, faulted the ongoing recall activities lined up by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), against Senator Dino Melaye, alluding that the commission was acting under instructions to recall him.

The upper chamber also dismissed the activities as an exercise in futility given the stringent provisions of the constitution and law of the land regarding the recall of a lawmaker.

‎It accused the state government of impunity, noting that the state is pulling the strings behind Melaye’s recall bid. The Senate took the position at yesterday’s plenary when Melaye raised a point of order and claimed that his attempted recall was necessitated by his call to the state government that arrears of salaries owed the Kogi workers be paid.

Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, in his contribution, said INEC appears to be teleguided and under instructions to recall the embattled Melaye. He asked that the INEC officer in-charge of operations should be called to order to stop spending wastefully, the money owned by Nigerians to achieve a selfish aim.

“It seems INEC is being teleguided, today they will announce timetable, tomorrow, they will do this. They are doing this day as if INEC has been under instructed to go and make sure that senator Dino Melaye is recalled.

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“INEC people are being paid by the Nigerian people. It is the money of Nigerians that they are spending in that INEC. Whoever that is in-charge of operations in that INEC, must be called to order by Nigerians because what they are doing today can happen to anybody. It means that once you quarrel with a governor, he will sit down in his office, he will compile signatures and he will say that this person should be recalled,” he said.

Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, said the recall exercise will not see the light of the day “because the constitution provided very strict procedures through which a lawmaker can be recalled to avoid any abuses and the constituents of the affected lawmaker and INEC must have to come back to the Senate after exhausting the laid down procedures to convince the Senate of its satisfactory compliance with the constitution”.

 

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