Melaye told Senators about his recall (video)

By Aunde T. Emmanuel (eaundeblog)

- Senator Dino Melaye says names and signatures on the register to recall him are forged 

- Melaye accuses Governor Yahaya Bello of sponsoring his recall for malicious purposes - He said some of his constituents were deceived into putting their names on the recall register 

Senator Dino Melaye has pleaded with his colleagues to stop the recall process initiated against him by his constituents. The controversial senator while delivering his appeal accused the Kogi state governor, Yahaya Bello of masterminding the recall process.

Melaye also accused that even dead bodies signed the recall registers while some of his legitimate constituents were deceived into singing the register. Here is a transcript of what Mr. Melaye told his Senate colleagues: "Mr President, my colleagues, the election that brought me to office, the total score of both valid and invalid votes for nine candidates, Mr. President, is 118,000; but my governor and his appointees in four days claimed they got a signature of over 188,000. Nowhere in my constituency did they see to receive people’s signature. They got INEC data base for registered voters and copied in one writing into a report register to forge all the signatures. "Mr. President, as I speak to you, I have over 120 dead certificates issued by the National Population Commission and these people’s relations and families have sworn to affidavit and these certificates have been deposited and as I speak to you, the names of all these dead people has been submitted in the recall register sent to INEC.

"Mr President, a 116 of my colleagues, my constituents I meant to say, also have sworn to affidavit that their names and signatures appeared in the recall register and they were not the ones that signed it. "Mr. President, 86 of my constituents have also sworn to affidavit to state that they were approached that the government want to carry out a fertilizer empowerment program and requested for their PVCs and thereby deceived into putting their names on the recall register. All these affidavits sworn to by these people have been submitted to INEC and the court.

"Mr. President, I am alerting this chamber on a situation that whereby a senator or a legislator will call for collective and enumerative measure in their state. My only sin is that I asked my governor to pay 17 months salary and pension to workers because the holy books says a labourer is worthy of wage. I am not going to belabour us, but they have been spending our money on pages of newspapers, spending money that they want to recall Dino Melaye. "The reason for recall is clearly stated is either… (pause) Mr. President it’s either you have been absent or you have underperformed or you are a sleeping senator, so for that reason you may initiate a recall. But this recall is not initiated by my constituents, it is by my state government and I want to bring the attention of my colleagues that this orchestration and injustice and lies of malicious manifestation of my governor should not be entertained in any democratic setting.

"I want to call on this Senate that this should not be allowed anywhere and not because it is Dino Melaye, it can be any member of the House of Assembly tomorrow and House of Representative. It can be any senator where his governor will just come up and cook names, signatures, including those of dead bodies and initiate a recall process because he has our common patrimonial resources within his disposal. I thank you for listening," he said. 

Melaye, who represents Kogi west district at the Senate made the statement on Tuesday, July 4, in reaction to reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had released the timetable for the commencement of the recall of his recall.