The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has notified suspended Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan about the receipt of a petition to recall her from the National Assembly.
The commission disclosed this in a statement by Sam Olumekun, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, on Wednesday in Abuja.
Olumekun also confirmed that further to the statement issued by INEC on Tuesday, the commission had received contact addresses of representatives of the petitioners seeking to recall Natasha.
He stated that the telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of the representatives of the petitioners had been provided to INEC in a letter addressed to the chairman of the commission, dated March 26.
“As provided in Clause 2(a) of the commission’s Regulations and Guidelines for Recall 2024, a letter has been written to notify the senator sought to be recalled about the receipt of the petition and delivered to her official address.
“The same letter has been copied to the presiding officer of the senate and published on the commission’s website.
“The next step is to scrutinise the list of signatories submitted by the petitioners to ascertain that the petition is signed by more than one half (over 50 per cent) of the registered voters in the constituency.
“This will be done in the coming days. The outcome, which will be made public, shall determine the next step to be taken by the commission,’’ he said.
Olumekun re-assured Nigerians that the recall process would be open and transparent.
A group of registered voters from Kogi Central Senatorial District had, on Monday, submitted a petition to INEC, urging the commission to commence the recall process of Akpoti-Uduaghan, Senator representing the senatorial district.
Natasha’s recall
The constituents, in the letter signed by the Lead Petitioner, Salihu Habib, and submitted at INEC headquarters, Abuja on Monday, said they no longer had confidence in Akpoti-Uduaghan as their senator and representative in the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, INEC had, on Tuesday, confirmed the receipt of the petition, accompanied by six bags of documents said to be signatures collected from more than half of the 474,554 registered voters from the senatorial district.
Olumekun said in a statement that the figure was said to have spread across 902 polling units in 57 registration areas (wards) in the five local government areas of Adavi, Ajaokuta, Ogori/Magongo, Okehi and Okene.
He assured Nigerians that the commission would follow its legal framework in treating the recall petition.
Olumekun, however, said that the commission’s immediate observation was that the representatives of the petitioners did not provide their contacts in the covering letter of the petition.
These, he said, included their addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses through which they could be contacted, as provided in Clause 1(f) of the commission’s regulations and guidelines.
“The address given was “Okene, Kogi State”, which is not a definite location for contacting the petitioners.
“Only the telephone number of “the lead petitioner” is provided, as against the numbers of all the other representatives of the petitioners,” Olumekun had said.
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