Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, who is serving a six-month suspension from the legislative house, on Thursday applauded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for rejecting a petition to recall her as the lawmaker representing Kogi Central district.
The female lawmaker, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, said that the electoral umpire should have thrown out the petition long before it did on Thursday.
She said: ‘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?”
A member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Akpoti-Uduaghan argued that most of the addresses provided in the petition for her recall were false because most houses in her district weren’t labelled.
‘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 added.
She accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Usman Ododo and the immediate past governor. alhaji Yahaya Bello of sponsoring her failed recall.
In a statement on Thursday, INEC said the petition for the recall of the lawmaker did not met the requirement of Section 69(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
‘Therefore, no further action shall be taken on the recall of the Senator’.
Spokesperson for INEC Chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, who was on the same programme, insisted that the petition did not meet the recall process.
Oyekanmi said INEC acted professionally and was not partisan in the whole episode.
Earlier, Akpoti-Uduaghan’s lawyer, Mr. Victor Giwa had accused the Kogi State Government of sponsoring the recall of the suspended female lawmaker. He had said the state government, through one of the governor’s aides, Charity Omole, championed the recall.
On Monday, 24 March, Omole led some constituents from Kogi Central senatorial zone to submit a petition to INEC for the recall of Akpoti-Uduaghan.
The female federal lawmaker was involved in a seat arrangement dispute with Senate President. The lawmaker also accused Akpabio of sexual harassment and abuse of office.
The Senate subsequently suspended her for six months for misconduct.
