Like a cat with nine lives, the Senator representing Kogi Central senatorial district, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, survived the recall process initiated against her as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), again, rejected the petition and aborted the process.
INEC had yesterday dismissed the petition seeking to recall the suspended Senator for failing to meet constitutional requirements, adding that no further action shall be taken on the Senator’s recall.
The commission revealed that following a thorough review of the signatures and thumbprints submitted by petitioners, only 208,132 signatories were verified, falling short of the required 237,278 by 29,146. According to INEC, the total number of registered voters in Kogi Central is 474,554, and at least 237,278 valid signatures were needed.
Recall that a group of registered voters from the Kogi Central Senatorial District stormed the INEC headquarters in Abuja on March 24, seeking the recall of Natasha. The constituents, in a petition dated March 21, said they have lost confidence in her ability to represent them. The group also claimed that about 250,000 voters signed the petition for the Kogi central senator’s recall.
Petition fell short by 29,146 signatures
INEC, in a statement by Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun, said the Commission could only ascertain 208,132 signatures/thumbprints from the submission made by the petitioners. This, according to Olumekun, translates to 43.86 per cent of the registered voters, which he said fell short of the constitutional requirement of 50 per cent by 29,146 signatories.
Reacting, the Senator, who has served a month already in her six months suspension handed by the Senate, thanked her husband, the electoral body, constituents and Nigerians for the show of support. Reacting via her official Facebook page, Akpoti-Uduaghan said: “On God, it’s victory for the people of Nigeria. One battle down, two more to go. INEC Nigeria, you did well”.
While speaking last night as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, she said the electoral umpire should have thrown out the petition long before it did yesterday, accusing Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Kogi State Governor, Usman Ododo, and ex-governor Yahaya Bello of sponsoring her failed recall.
“I’m a lawyer. I’m a senator, and I understand how Nigeria works. For me, the most important thing is that 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 no law in the Electoral Act says a petition should be discarded just because there is no address, but again, what if the address is false?”
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmaker argued that most of the addresses provided in the petition for her recall were false because most houses in her district weren’t labeled. “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.
Constituents: INEC’s recognition of signatures, proof Kogi Central has abandoned Natasha UNDETERRED by the stalled recall, constituents of Kogi Central Senatorial District have thanked INEC for validating 208,132 (43.86 per cent) signatures in the petition to recall Akpoti-Uduaghan. The constituents noted that though they had mobilised more than the 50 per cent plus one threshold of registered voters and submitted their petition with full documentation, the validation of 43.86 per cent by the commission still confirmed that Kogi Central constituents have abandoned the embattled Senator.
“Apparently, INEC canceled not less than 35,000 signatures at the administrative stage,” the constituents said. In a statement yesterday signed by Salihu Habib on behalf of the petitioners, the constituents insisted that there was no going back on their resolve to bring the Kogi Senator back home.
“We will liaise with INEC within the full ambits of the Constitution and regulations to demand for transparency in the handling of our petition. We have utmost confidence in the Commission not to subject the recall process to ambiguity or administrative opacity,” the constituents said.
They expressed their gratitude to INEC for proving naysayers, who queried the authenticity of their figures, wrong. The petitioners insisted that the recall of Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan “for misconduct and divisiveness” was non-negotiable.
They said, “We are firm in our resolve to restore dignified and collaborative representation to Kogi Central Senatorial District. We will no longer indulge someone who will do and say anything just to remain politically relevant. The whole of Nigeria watched her deceptive rally on Tuesday, where she openly made comments capable of setting not just Kogi State but Nigeria ablaze.
“How can any patriotic Nigerian accuse other parts of the country of sabotaging Kogi/the North because LNG plants are sited here? How can a responsible Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria try to pitch the North against the South? We will pursue all lawful and constitutional means to ensure our voices are heard and respected. After God, power belongs to the people,” the constituents declared.
INEC not partisan in failed recall – Spokesperson
MEANWHILE, INEC has denied claims of being partisan in handling the failed recall of the Senator. The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.
“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides. But what happened was that in the cover letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address; it has nothing to do with the petition.
“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”
I’ll release evidence of sexual harassment against Akpabio
HOWEVER, the embattled Senator has said she will soon present evidence of sexual harassment against Senate President Akpabio. “At the right time and the right space, I will present the evidence that I have,” the female lawmaker said on the TV programme.
Akpoti-Uduaghan had accused Akpabio of sexually harassing her on several occasions. She claimed that Akpabio victimised and frustrated her for rejecting his sexual advances.
She also disclosed why she used a helicopter instead of road transport for her recent visit to constituents in Kogi, where she received a rousing welcome from supporters. Natasha said her husband advised her to use a helicopter. This development occurred despite a government ban on rallies and processions.
She said: “When I saw the prohibition of fishing and water activities, the ban on convoys, and a list of checkpoints that suddenly appeared, barring entrance into my senatorial district—which spans from Ibilo to Kogi via Auchi, Okene, Abuja, Lokoja, Akure, Ikare, and other major roads—the situation was very intense, and I knew there would be trouble. And my husband said, ‘You know what? We can actually get a helicopter to land us right in our compound,’ because we own the land opposite our village home. And that’s how we got in.
“With that move, we broke no law, and the people gathered right in my compound. The road you see us walking through was constructed by me, so it’s not a government road or facility. Therefore, I broke no law. I’m a good citizen of Nigeria, a law-abiding one at that. I’m sure you can attest to that.”
How Constitution makes lawmaker’s recall almost impossible
WHILE Nigeria has witnessed the impeachment of a seating governor of the Old Kaduna State, the late Balarabe Musa during the Second Republic (1979-1983) and several cases of declaration of State of Emergency, there has never been any successful incident where a lawmaker, either at the federal and state leve,l has been recalled.
Speaking to the reasons why no lawmaker has been recalled since 1999, not even when such lawmaker becomes extremely unpopular or at worst defected from the platform under which he or she was elected into the hallowed chamber, former Minority Leader of the Senate, Olorunimbe Mamora said the commission cannot be blamed for throwing out the recall petition of Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan because the Constitution cannot be relied upon to achieve everything where the practitioners and those assigned or elected to implement the laws are not really sincere.
According to him, “it didn’t come as a surprise that INEC eventually threw out the petition to recall Akpoti-Uduaghan because in the first place, there is no authentic voters register to rely on.
“The question is the reliability of the voter register which INEC is going to use to implement the process. We all understand that the issue of ghost voters is still a problem in today’s Nigeria.
“We also need the sincerity and commitment of the practitioners to get the constitution implemented. I said earlier that the recall attempt of Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan may not see the light of the day.”
A former member of the House of Representatives that represented the Ogoni people of Khana/Gokana Federal Constituency, Hon. Bernard Mikko, said the way the Nigerian Constitution was framed had made it almost impossible to recall any lawmaker. “If it ever happened, it must have come from the practitioners themselves and not from the people.
“How do you expect entire voters in senatorial districts to line up for a headcount to recall just a single lawmaker where we can hardly speak of authentic voters register?”
To further break down the elements for a recall, a petition signed by more than 50% of registered voters in a constituency is a daunting requirement. In a country like Nigeria, where voter apathy is common and turnout in elections is often low, gathering so many signatures can be extraordinarily difficult. For context, in many constituencies, the number of registered voters can range from a few thousand to tens of thousands or more. Mobilising half of that population, especially outside of an election cycle, poses logistical and financial challenges.
Regarding the case of Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, Mikko said, the Kogi Central lawmaker had successfully played up the gender issue against the Senate such that if the commission had gone ahead with the process, “it would have created an image crisis for INEC.”
