The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it did not verify the signatures in the petition submitted for Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s recall.
Naijaonpoint reported that INEC, in a statement, on Thursday, rejected the recall process against the Kogi Central Senator who accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexually harassing her.
The commission said its decision followed the counting of signatures/thumbprints forwarded with the petition, which stood at 43.86%, instead of the more than 50% required by Section 69(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
Speaking with Channels TV on Thursday, the Chief Press Secretary to Mahmood Yakubu, INEC’s Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, explained that the signatures in the petition were not verified.
He stated that the commission only counted that number of signatures, and having fallen short of the required number to initiate a recall, the process was suspended at that stage.
“The first we do according to our regulation is to ascertain the number of signatures, whether it meets the threshold of 50 plus one. And that was all that we did, and by the time we physically audited the signatures it did not meet the threshold,” he said.
Addressing opinions from citizens that the signatures could be forged, Oyekanmi stated that INEC could only establish a forged signature during verification.
He stressed that since the signatures in the petition did not meet the threshold, the commission would not be moving to the verification stage.
“Now concerning the forgeries that people talked about it is at the verification stage that all that will come out. Because you see, at the verification stage which is very critical, those who signed the petitions must come out and verify themselves. We do that using BVAS. So you can’t have a ghost come out to verify him or herself. So that is very critical. And if after the verification process we cannot get 50 percent plus one, the process will stop at that point as well,” he stated.