The attempt to recall Senator Dino Melaye from the National Assembly suffered miscarriage last Saturday after the petitioners failed to verify the signatures they dubiously submitted to INEC last year.
One Cornelius Olowo had led petitioners to the Abuja office of INEC sometimes last year with six loaded Ghana-Must-Go sacks filled with register of 188,500 signatures of electorates seeking to recall Senator Dino Melaye. Olowo and his government sponsored agents jumped up and down the streets of Lokoja beating their chests that Dino will be recalled without stress.
However, last Saturday revealed their true political value. That barely garnered 5% signatures of electorates in Kogi West. The real shame is not in their failure to recall Dino but the near zero number of support that could muster in Kogi West. Their shame is eternal.
The government and supporters of Gov. Yahaya Bello are wallowing in the pains of this defeat and the pains will not go away soon. All appointees and agents of Yahaya Bello are losers in the shambolic recall episode. However, I wish to unveil the top five losers in the failed recall project.
1. Yahaya Bello
Gov. Yahaya Bello is the dirtiest fighter in Kogi history. He has fought with almost everyone and everything since he became governor of Kogi state in 2016. He has waged war against our roundabouts, civil servants, pensioners, journalists, politicians and common patrimony with his planned sale of government assets. He is relentless war monger. His two years old raging war against Dino Melaye will readily make a good Hollywood block buster. He believes anyone who oppose his retrogressive ways must but destroyed at all cost, even if salaries of workers have to wait. He is the biggest loser in the failed recall project. The chest-fallen Bello was roundly humiliated on Saturday by impoverished and angry electorates in Kogi West. He funded the recall project and deployed all dirty strategies to make it work but failed woefully. So bad was his fall that he may never recover till he is booted out of Lugard House next year.
2. Edward Onoja
The chief of staff to Yahaya Bello turned himself into the chief executioner of the recall project. He once boasted sometimes last year that if Dino is not down by the end of June 2017 then there is no god. June passed and Dino was still standing strong. The unrelenting Edward Onoja continued with the doomed recall project like his destiny is not secured if Dino is not recalled. He has been involved in all the negatives under Bello’s government. He successfully turned Dino’s recall project into Kogi government priority infrastructural project. He was everywhere on social media boasting that Dino will be recalled but was put to shame by Kogi West electorates. Many believe this shameful defeat is the beginning of Edward Onoja’s gradual slide into ignominy.
3. Muhammadu Buhari
President Muhammadu Buhari is the god-father of Yahaya Bello and all his shenanigans had his tacit support. The powers of presidency was deployed in full to suppress Dino and get him recalled. The Police was fully deployed in gestapo-style to cage and keep Dino out of circulation few days to the execution of the recall project. Shamefully, Dino’s recall became a national project. Buhari has turned deaf hears to all hues and cries from Kogi state against his beloved Bello. Military wares were allegedly imported into Buhari’s country by Kogi government and the chief security office of the country did not say a word! His beloved Bello committed electoral crime of registering twice but Buhari welcomed him into Aso Rock with smiles. It will take more than HYPO to wash Buhari clean of his involvement in this shameful recall project.
4. Smart Adeyemi
The former Senator is positioned to be the major beneficiary of the recall project. Smart Adeyemi was deployed to the field to mobilize support for the recall of Dino with the promise of picking the APC ticket for the by-election if the the recall sail through. Immediately after the petition was submitted, Smart Adeyemi swung into action criss-crossing the seven local governments in Kogi West mobilizing electorates for the recall. He was so sure of returning to the senate through the back door but his dreams were shattered by the resolute Kogi West electorates. Last Saturday defeat will bring Smart Adeyemi more sorrow than his defeat in the 2015 senate election. His ego was deflated and his political weight was demystified. By now, his ardent must have seen the handwriting on the wall and will have a rethink supporting him in 2019.
5. Cornelius Olowo
This character was single handedly handpicked by Dino Melaye as the APC House of Assembly candidate for Ijumu in 2015. He was a loyal boy to Dino until he was seduced to join the new direction government of Yahaya Bello. He gladly accepted to be the leader of the petitioners who want to recall Dino. He was immediately awarded with an appointment a supervisory councillor in Ijumu local government. With cries of forged signatures all over the seven local governments in Kogi West, Olowo will be lucky if he escape jail as a result of law suits that may likely follow the failed recall project.
– Titi Balogun writes from Lokoja.
