Only N100m was spent on Melaye’s recall, says INEC

Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says it spent only N100 million on the bid to recall Dino Melaye, lawmaker representing Kogi west senatorial district.

Yakubu said this at a press conference in Abuja on Friday, debunking the allegation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the commission spent N1 billion on the process.

“A recall exercise is just like conducting a senatorial election. The Kogi-west which Melaye represents has 552 polling units and seven local governments… we spent only N100 million on the exercise,” he said.

On Saturday, INEC verified signatures collected for the recall but not one of the seven local government areas in the district recorded a big turnout of voters.

Out of the 189,870 signatories to the petition to recall Melaye from the upper legislative chamber, only 18,742 were verified by INEC.

The verified signatories represent 5.34 percent of the 351,146 registered voters in Kogi west, thereby did not meet the required criteria.

For the verification exercise to succeed, 50 percent plus one of the signatories to the petition had to be verified.

Announcing the result of the verification exercise on Sunday morning, Ukertor Moti, the declaration officer for the exercise, said a referendum — the next step in the recall process — would not be hold.

He said: “I Professor Ukertor Gabriel Moti, affirm that the information on verification of signatures to the petition for the recall of senator Dino David Melaye of Kogi west senatorial district has taken place on this day, 28th day of April 2018, and that the verified signatures is 5.34 percent of the total number of registered voters in the constituency and has therefore not satisfied a requirement of the law for a referendum.”