The move to recall the senator representing Kogi West senatorial district, Dino Melaye, suffered a setback as the people of Yagba federal constituency on Sunday dissociated themselves from the move.
The federal constituency, which consists of Yagba West, Yagba East and Mopamoro Local Government Areas described the exercise as a ‘comedy’.
Speaking under the aegis of the Coalition of Enlightened Voters, a non-partisan group of electorate in the federal constituency, the people said the area was not part of the exercise and would not support it.
The group made the people’s stand known in a statement titled “Yagba people not part of Senator Dino Melaye recall farce” signed by Kehinde Abayomi (Yagba East), Temitope Olajide (Yagba West) and Adebayo Michael (Mopamuro), leading 500 other signatories.
The people said that they had in recent days, observed strange developments witnessed in their domain, supposedly couched as a ‘recall process’, targeted at Melaye, dissociating the 34 electoral wards in Yagba federal constituency from the recall process.
The statement read, “We note that the comedy falls short of the expectations of the drafters of the relevant law on the recall of a parliamentarian.
“It is not in our character as Yagba people to orchestrate the recall of elected representatives, especially when such a project is not founded on proven allegations of misrepresentation or non-performance.
“Our findings showed that the recall process did not emanate from the electorate, but is a sponsored enterprise based on political malice, initiated by interests outside Kogi West Senatorial District and anchored by state and local government appointees.
“To make things worse, through inducement involving cash and materials, gullible electorate were lured into the submission of their Permanent Voters’ Cards, after being deceived that the collection of the cards was for the purpose of population census. The forum views the foregoing as farcical, ludicrous, absurd and criminal, capable of creating confusion and further divisions among Okun brothers.”
While condemning the process, the people called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to commence full investigations into the activities of the purveyors of the farcical recall process.
“The electorate, populated by civil servants and pensioners who have not been paid their salaries and pensions for several months, deserve a breather from the poor quality of life and must not be made amenable guinea pigs by political mercenaries.
“We reiterates its status as a non-partisan organisation. Thus, it is our observation that the charade tagged recall was an exercise based on intra-party divisions within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state,” said the group.
Credits: Yinka Oladoyinbo | Tribune
