INEC says Recall effort by Senator Natasha Akpoti’s constituents failed constitutional provision.
By Steve Ovirih.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has ruled against the petition to recall Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, indicating that the recall effort does not meet the necessary legal provisions.
This resolve by INEC was reached on Thursday as announced in an update on its official X (formerly Twitter) handle.
According to INEC, the petition failed to fulfill the conditions set under Section 69(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
It will be recalled that Constituents from Kogi Central submitted the recall petition to INEC last month. The petition was accompanied by six bags filled with documents containing signatures allegedly gathered from over half of the 474,554 registered voters in the district.
Reports say these signatures were collected from 902 polling units across the five local government areas of Ajaokuta, Adavi, Okehi, Okene and Ogorimagingo. INEC was expected to verify the signatures before deciding whether the recall process could proceed.
According to INEC regulations, for a recall to move forward, more than half of the registered voters in the senatorial district must sign the petition. If this threshold is met, the commission is required to conduct a referendum within 90 days. However, if the petition does not meet the required number of signatures, INEC must issue a public notice confirming its rejection.
The recall petition stems from ongoing controversies surrounding Akpoti-Uduaghan, who was suspended from the Senate on March 6 for alleged “gross misconduct” following a dispute with Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
The rejection of the Petition to recall Senator Natasha Akpoti shows the readiness of INEC to be thorough and adhere strictly to the spirit and letter of the constitution in matters that have to do with the tenure of the people’s representatives at The National Assembly as ‘manipulation’ of the recall process or allowing the exercise to be hijacked by the juggernauts in politics would have impugn the freedom of members of the National Assembly and make them lawmakers that will have to kowtow to extraneous sentiments at the expense of the business of lawmaking.
