- Safiu Kehinde
Suspended Kogi lawmaker, Sen. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the dismissal of the petition for her recall, stressing that it should have long been discarded.
NPO Reported that a group of Kogi Central Senatorial District, under the aegis of Concerned Kogi Youths and Women, had filed the petition against the lawmaker over her six months suspension from the Senate.
Having initially rejected the petition for contacts omission, INEC would again dismiss the petition on Wednesday, declaring that it failed to meet the 50 percent plus one signatory requirement.
Reacting in an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today programme yesterday evening, Natasha lauded INEC’s decision.
While admitted that there is no law in the commission’s electoral act backing the initial rejection of the petition, Natasha held that the petition would have hardly got 500 voters if carefully verified by INEC.
“I’m a lawyer. I’m a senator and I understand how Nigeria works. For me, the most important thing is this recall process has been stalled.
“I give kudos and credit to INEC even though I believe they should have thrown it away from the get-go.
“I think it was void ab initio because there is no law in the Electoral Act that says a petition should be discarded just because there is no address but again, what if the address is false?”
“Even though INEC did count 208,000 signatures, I bet you if they had gone into the verification stage, they would have struggled to even have 500 people come out to attest to signing that,” she said.