Senator Dino Melaye, representing Kogi West Senatorial district in the
National Assembly says the signatures allegedly collected to influence his
recall and forwarded to INEC were forged.
Addressing newsmen on Sunday in Lokoja, Melaye who said investigations had
revealed that even the dead signed the recall across the seven area
councils of the senatorial district, described the process as fraudulent.
Speaking through one of his legislative aides, Malam Abubakar Sadiq, the
embattled senator said names and signatures of dead constituents were on
the list.
According to him, the name of a former governorship aspirant of the All
Progressive Congress (APC) in the state, late Chief Rotimi Obadofin
precisely 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.
“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 stated.
Senator Melaye also alleged that they claimed to have gotten over 188,000
signatories of electorates in Kogi West when the total vote cast, both
valid and rejected, in the last senatorial election of 2015, was merely
111, 000 for all the candidates that participated.
In a swift reaction, Gov. Yahaya Bello of Kogi said Senator Dino Melaye
should stop worrying about INEC.
Bello, who spoke through his chief Press Secretary, Mrs Petra Onyegbule,
said facts about the constituents were with INEC which had the
responsibility of verifying the signatures.
“There is nothing for the distinguished senator to be worried about. INEC
has set July 3, for the public verification of signatures and the date is
around the corner; there is no point burning their energies all over the
place”, Onyegbule said