Stop grumbling, wait for verification of recall signatures, Gov Bello advises Melaye

Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello has called on Senator Dino Melaye to stop his worries and complaints over the signatories for his recall and wait for the Independent National Electoral Commission’s date for public verification of the signatories.

Bello was responding to Melaye’s allegations that the signatures collected to recall him from representing Kogi West Central senatorial district at the Senate was forged and full of names of dead persons in the constituents.

Melaye had in his address to newsmen in Lokoja at the weekend through one of his legislative aides, Malam Abubakar Sadiq, claimed that even the name of a former governorship aspirant of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, late Chief Rotimi Obadofin, from Iya-Gbede axis, was on the list.

“Let me also sound authoritatively 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 now. Such people like late Abdullahi Abubakar, his immediate younger sister late Halima Lawal Abubakar and Ibrahim Adama of Unit Code 021, Adankolo Ring Road in Ward ‘A’, Lokoja Local Government Council.

“Also one late Salihu Black of Gegu-Beki town, Kogi Local Government Council who until his death was a biology teacher in Government Secondary School, Koton-Karfe, also appended his signature on the recall list.

Read also: Kogi’s Political Mess: Will Gov Bello be jailed or Sen Melaye recalled?

“This recall exercise was hatched in Kogi Government House due to the manner in which Senator Dino Melaye consistently challenges and engages the government over non-payment of workers’ salaries and pensioners for over 15 months; and also the constant closure of tertiary institutions,” he had said.

But Bello in his reply through his Chief Press Secretary, Mrs Petra Onyegbule, said the names are verifiable since all the facts about the constituents were with INEC

He therefore said that Senator Melaye has nothing to be worried about since “INEC has set July 3 for the public verification of signatures and the date is around the corner; there is no point burning energies all over the place.”

He further denied the claim by Melaye that the collation of the signatures was done at Government House.

 

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