Melaye Drags INEC To Court, Moves To Stop Recall Process
Determined to save his seat, Senator Dino Melaye, Friday, dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission before the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, seeking an order stopping ongoing process by his constituents to recall him.
In an Originating Summons he filed through his lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, the embattled lawmaker prayed the court to declare that the petition presented to INEC for his recall was illegal, unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional, invalid, null and void and of no effect in law.
He also prayed the court for a declaration that the petition purportedly forwarded to the INEC was invalid and of no effect, the same being signed by fictitious, dead and none existing persons in his senatorial district, as well as for an order of injunction restraining INEC from commencing or further continuing or completing the process of his recall.
Melaye also wants the court to make an order stopping INEC from acting on the petition submitted to it. In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/567/2017, which he filed pursuant to sections 36,68 and 69 of the 1999 Constitution and Order 3, Rule 6 of the FHC Civil Procedure Rules 2009, Melaye, begged the high court to stop the electoral body from conducting any referendum predicated on the fictitious petition allegedly submitted to it by his purported constituents on the basis of the fundamentally and legally flawed petition.
He specifically urged the court to determine whether by provisions of Sections 68 and 69 of the Constitution, he is entitled to a fair hearing before the process of his recall as envisaged by the provisions of Section 69 of the Constitution can be triggered.
‘To determine whether the petition presented to the defendant is in compliance with the requirements of the constitution, same being heavily tainted with political malice, bad motive, personal vendetta and bad faith, which were initiated by top politicians in Kogi State, who wield enormous power over his Senatorial constituency. Likewise to determine whether the process of recall as provided for in Section 69 of the constitution can be initiated against him when the number of registered and qualified voters in the constituency who purportedly signed the petition is grossly less than the number required in Section 69(a) of the constitution.
Meanwhile, no date has been fixed for hearing of the suit.
