The ‘over-smart’ former Senator has been moving from one village to the other in Kogi West in a renewed bid to return to the Senate through the back door. Smart Adeyemi’s is hoping that his collabo with Edward Onoja to recall Dino Melaye from Senate is his fastest route to return to chamber where he mis-represented us for 8 fruitless years.
We need to remind Smart that it was God almighty that expelled him from Senate in 2015 and not man. Left for mortals, his free-spending campaign would have successfully bought over majority of voters and officials. The miraculous upturning of tables from Lokoja and Koto people was an act of God.
In the March 28, 2015 Kogi West senate election, Dino Melaye polled 41,120 of the total 118, 987 votes cast, while his closest opponent, Smart Adeyemi polled 38, 148 votes and Samuel Aro of Accord Party had 26,198 votes. Kindly note that out of about 365,000 registered voters in Kogi West only 118,987 voted.
Now, as a political contractor, Smart has been ‘mobilised’ by the ‘lion’ in Kogi to buy Kogi West voters to sign register to recall Dino. The first step in the recall process is for the ‘recallers’ to get signatures of 50% of registered voters in Kogi West. 50% of registered voters in Kogi West is about 182,000 voters. This number is higher than the total votes cast for Dino, Smart, Aro and a host of other senate candidates during the heated 2015 election.
How uncle Smart that struggled to garner just 38,148 votes in his own election intend to generate 182,000 voters’ signatures is yet to be seen. As at today, we are aware of that they have not been able to get 15,000 signatures despite their noise on social media. We are also aware that some recruited miscreants are entering multiple signatures in the ridiculous register. They just assume they can dubiously gather fake signatures and get through INEC verification with ‘settlement’.
Since Smart visited Gov. Bello in Lugard House and was rumoured to have been ‘mobilized’ for the recall project he has been moving around towns and villages in Kogi West to convince commercialized political jobbers on why they need to recall Dino and send him back to Senate as replacement. How this well-oiled campaign will fare is yet to be seen. In his estimation, Dino will be recalled before end of July 2017 and fresh election will be conducted for him to return to Senate.
What the smart one failed to realise was the fact that the factors responsible for his expulsion from the senate by the people in 2015 are still intact.
However, the recall move is failing already. The recall contractors collected N2,000 per signature to be bought for the recall project but are giving N500 only to willing voters. This criminal dimension was unnoticed when the recall mobilization started but willing voters are now aware they are being shortchanged. This was the reason why an appointee of Gov. Bello was mobbed in Lokoja few days ago when he attempted to buy signatures for the recall.
– Titi Balogun writes from Lokoja.
