Senators and Governors: The battle in Kogi West

Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello and Dino Melaye

Never in the history of Nigeria’s presidential democracy has a federal legislator been successfully recalled. Antagonists of Senator Dino Melaye in his Kogi West Senatorial Constituency are thumping that they could be the first to achieve the landmark.
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
Section 69

9. A member of the Senate or of the House Representatives may be recalled

(a)  there is presented to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission a petition in that behalf signed by more than one-half of the persons registered to vote in that member’s constituency alleging their loss of confidence in that member; and
(b)  the petition is thereafter, in a referendum conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission within ninety days of the date of receipt of the petition, approved by a simple majority of the votes of the persons registered to vote in that member’s constituency.
YESTERDAY some of the political associates of Governor Yahaya Bello were settling back in Lokoja and relaxing after the exerting job of assembling 188,588 signatures from the 360,098 registered voters in Kogi West to signal the recall from the Senate of Senator Dino Melaye. The signatories represent 52 per cent of the voters, a percentage point above the constitutional requirement of 51 per cent of signatures. Read more