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Group wants Nigerians to check lawmakers with recall

By John Akubo, Lokoja
30 June 2017   |   3:41 am
As Senator Dino Melaye battles with the process of recall initiated against him by some of his constituents, a group of voters from his Kogi West Senatorial District has urged Nigerians to recognize...

Dino Melaye. PHOTO: Youtube

As Senator Dino Melaye battles with the process of recall initiated against him by some of his constituents, a group of voters from his Kogi West Senatorial District has urged Nigerians to recognize the potency of their constitutional power to discontinue with the services of recalcitrant representatives.

The group which claimed to be an umbrella association of aggrieved voters in Kogi West, also asked other senatorial districts in the country to emulate them in their efforts at recalling their.

The group said the heat generated by the recall process on Melaye has started yielding dividends of democracy to the constituency as the Senator has hurriedly started the construction and provision of numerous constituency projects to win the sympathy of the voters.

Addressing newsmen in Lokoja, Kogi State capital, spokesman of the group, Cornelius Olowo, noted that the Senator hurriedly distributed four vehicles to the people of the constituency and awarded and mobilised contractors, to nine people-oriented projects across the district.

He said if the other two senatorial zones in the state desire to have dividends of democracy in terms of constituency projects, the constituents should emulate Kogi West “as a way of putting pressures on their representatives to perform.”

Despite the favourable response from the Senator, the group however vowed that there is no going back on the Melaye recall process since more than the constitutional requirements have been met while also urging the embattled lawmaker “not to panic or try to arm-twist the electoral body by using the courts.”

They stated that the Okun Development Initiative (ODI), which allegedly inferred that some of its prominent indigenes have thrown their weight behind Melaye, is a non-existent association.

The group described the existent of ODI and its support for Melaye as a figment of the imagination of the Senator, “as there is no group like that in existent in Kogi West Senatorial District.”

Olowo explained that the embattled Senator was suffering from self-inflicted problem of his under-performance and poor representation adding that his previous and present activities are responsible for his travails.

“That the frivolous inclusion of prominent names such as Gen.David Jemibewon, Bayo Ojo SAN, Kola Jamudu and a host of others as his supporters, is most uncharitable. We are aware that they have disassociated themselves from the purported story in the social media. We are equally assuring him that we stand by the names and signatures we collated and we urged him to stop preempting the INEC by alluding to some names as dead persons.

“We hold the names of the Okun leaders mentioned in the said publication in high esteem and we will not be distracted by his antics to rubbish the meticulous process that we have collated.”

The group also challenged Melaye not to muzzle the process but to have faith in the INEC, which has set a timetable for the investigation of the process.

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