KOGI WEST: SIGNATURES FOR MY RECALL WERE FORGED - DINO MELAYE

Kogi West's embattled senator, Dino Melaye, alleged that the number of signatures collected for his recall and presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was coined.

Speaking to journalists in Lokoja on weekends, the chairman of the Senate Committee of the Federal Capital Territory noted that his investigations revealed that even the dead signed the recall registry in the seven local government boards of the Senate District .

Senator Melaye, who spoke by one of his legislative assistants, Mallam Abubakar Sadiq, stressed that the name of the former aspirant to the governor of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the dead state, the Italian Yakubu Rotimi Obadofin of Ijumu Local Government Council, was included in the list.

“Here in Lokoja Local Government Council, several others, whose names and signatures appeared on the list of the signatories to this exercise were identified and known to us as being dead long before now.

“This recall was hatched in Government House, due to the manner in which senator Dino Melaye had consistently challenged and engaged the government of Kogi State over non-payment of workers salaries and pensioners for over 15 months so also, closure of tertiary institutions ,” he stated.

Melaye added that they claimed to have obtained more than 188,000 signatories of the electorate in Kogi West where, as the total vote voted in the last Senate elections in 2015 was only 111,000 for all candidates who participated in the election both valid and rejected votes.

In response, Governor Yahaya Bello said that Senator Melaye should stop worrying about INEC.

The Governor, who spoke by his chief press secretary, Petra Onyegbule Akinti, said: "The fact that people who have registered with INEC are responsible for checking the signatures, That it has nothing to do with the government of Kogi State.

“There is nothing for the distinguished senator to be worried about; INEC has set July 3, 2017 for public verification of signatures and the date is around the corner. There is no point burning energy all over the place”, the governor said.

Meanwhile, residents of Iyara, the headquarters of the Ijumu local government region in Kogi State, yelled at the state government to urgently come to their aid, saying that The city has long been abandoned.

The president of the Iyara Development Movement, Chief Benjamin Ojo, who spoke during Iyara Day said that the community lacks social amenities and added that the road to the township is in bad condition, No drinking water and a good health center.