SAN FRANCISCO, September 11, (THEWILL) – A Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit filed by the senator representing Kogi West, Dino Melaye, challenging the validity of the process instituted by members of his constituency to recall him.
In a judgment delivered on Monday, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba ordered that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, “shall proceed with the recall process”.
The judge held that all the complaints made by Melaye lack merit and deserve to be dismissed.
On the complain of lack of fair hearing by the constituents before forwarding the recall petition to INEC, he said it lacks merit, noting that the recall process is a political question, which is beyond the court to deal with.
Justice Dimgba said the Kogi West electorate have no duty to serve the legislator a copy of the recall petition.
He said Melaye has the opportunity to campaign to the electorate before the referendum to sell his achievements to them according to the 90 days time table and schedule of activities set by INEC as set out in Section 69 of the Constitution.
“The electorate voted the legislator into office; they gifted him with the office, they also have the powers to take away that which have been given,” he said.
The judge dismissed Melaye’s claim that the petition emanated from malice, bad faith, vendetta and against the natural justice.
He also dismissed the senator’s assertion that the 188, 000 signatories to the petition contained those of non-existent, dead and forged”, stressing that the complain was hasty since he has not exhausted the INEC verification process for the signatories.
Justice Dimgba described Melaye’s complain that officials of the electoral umpire ought to swear to an oath of neutrality as “premature” since it is not certain that a recall election will hold.
He however ordered INEC to serve Melaye the recall petition, schedule of signatures attached to the recall petition and full list of all persons in support of the recall process as contained in jute bags before the verification exercise.
An earlier ex parte order had on July 6, 2017 been made by another judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice John Tsoho, directing parties in the suit to maintain status quo.
But Justice Dimgba, to whom the case was reassigned, ordered that process for the recall shall only proceed, subject to the service of the petition, the full list and signatures of persons in support of the recall process.
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