By Noah Ocheni, Lokoja
The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) on Thursday collapsed planned by some constituents to recall Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan representing Kogi Central district.
In a statement by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC on its social media handles on Thursday said the petition for her recall according to the constitution failed to meet the legal requirements.
The electoral commission stated in it’s update that the petition failed to fulfill the conditions set under Section 69(a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
Constituents from Kogi Central had submitted the recall petition to INEC last month. The petition was accompanied by six bags filled with documents containing signatures said to have been gathered from over half of the 474,554 registered voters in the district.
These signatures were collected from 902 polling units across the five local government areas of Adavi, Ajaokuta, Ogori/Magongo, Okehi, and Okene.
The commission later said the petition was without the contact details of representatives of the constituents seeking the senator’s recall in line with its guidelines
A day later, INEC announced that the petitioners had complied by providing their telephone numbers and e-mail addresses
The next step, according to INEC was to scrutinise the list of signatories submitted by the petitioners to ascertain that the petition was signed by more than one half of the registered voters in the constituency.
It had said the outcome, which will be made public, will determine the next step to be taken by the Commission.
In its latest update on Thursday, INEC says the petition did not meet the legal threshold
In a terse statement on its official X handle and Facebook pages, it said “the petition for the recall of the Senator representing the Kogi Central Senatorial District has not met the requirement of Section 69(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
