Melaye’s recall: We were not blackmailed to suspend process —INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has denied media report that it was  blackmailed to halt the process for the recall of the Senator representing Kogi-West senatorial district in the National Assembly, Senator Dino Melaye.

The commission, in a statement by its national commissioner and Chairman,  Information and Voter Education Committee,  Prince Adedeji Soyebi,  premised its decision to stay action on the recall process on the order of Justice John  Tsoho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which directed the INEC to stay action on the recall of Melaye.

Justice  Tsoho ruled that the parties maintain status quo pending the hearing of the motion on notice and adjourned the case till September 29, 2017.

An online publication, Sahara Reporters, had declared that the commission  hurriedly took the action to halt Melaye’s recall process as a result of the Senate’s decision to probe the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TEFUND), where the present Chairman of INEC previously served as Executive Secretary. But, the INEC,  in a statement by Rotimi Oyekanmi, chief press secretary to the commission’s Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, dismissed  as “totally incorrect and mischievous,” the claim by the online publication.

Oyekanmi declared that Professor Yakubu was not in the country when the decision  to stay action on the recall process was taken, and therefore, could not have influenced it.

The statement read in part: “The Commission wishes to state unequivocally that these reports are totally incorrect and mischievous.

“It is public knowledge that some registered voters from the Kogi West Senatorial District approached the Commission on June,” and submitted a petition to initiate the process of recalling the Senator representing their district.”