Melaye Begs Supreme Court To Stop Recall

Dino Melaye, senator representing Kogi west at the National Assembly, has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court to overturn an appeal Court judgement to resume his recall process from the Senate.

In an appeal he filed against the March 16, 2018 judgment of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, the senator also urged the apex court to declare the petitions submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission seeking his recall as illegal.

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The Court of Appeal had on March 16, asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to proceed with the senator’s recall.

Justice Tunde Awotoye and two other judges held that contrary to Melaye’s contention, the 90 days provided by the 1999 Constitution for the recall process to be concluded had not run out but had been paused since June 23, 2017 when he commenced the suit before the Federal High Court, Abuja.

The court ordered INEC to continue with the planned verification of 188,588 who reportedly signed petition for the recall.

Following the Court of Appeal’s judgment, INEC had announced that the recall process would resume on April 28.

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But on Tuesday, Melaye, through his lead counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), filed his appeal against the judgment.

According to the notice of appeal the three Justices of the Court of Appeal who delivered the unanimous judgment dismissing his suit erred in law.

Also on Wednesday, Melaye filed a motion before the Court of Appeal seeking the stay of execution of the court’s judgment.

He urged the court to, “Declare the recall processes purportedly initiated against the plaintiff by INEC on the basis of the petition for the recall of the plaintiff/appellant, as illegal, unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional, null, void and of no effect whatsoever, same having been commenced and conducted on the basis of an invalid petition”.

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