Senator Natasha: INEC And Integrity Gap

“This Recall joke from Kogi State will not stop till people are prosecuted for signature forgery under Section 467 of the Criminal Code Act and wasting INEC resources and time. If we don’t make an example, people won’t stop being used to forge signatures”.

BY IREYI ZUBAIR

In 2018, a sponsored recall process was initiated against Senator Dino Melaye. The recall failed because those whose signatures were submitted for the recall petition did not come over for verification. What that indicates is that the owners of the signatures never signed a recall form. They were forged by the sponsors and the actors. They succeeded in making INEC Nigeria waste public resources for the verification exercise.

Then, what happened to the petitioners who submitted the forged signatures? Nothing! Meanwhile, the Nigerian Criminal Code defines forgery as making a false document or writing with the intent that it be used as genuine, and it is a felony. What are the penalties for forgery?

Section 467 of the Criminal Code Act states that anyone who forges any document, writing, or seal is guilty of an offence and is liable to imprisonment for three years. Section 364 of the Criminal Code prescribes a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment for forgery.

The petitioners were not prosecuted for submitting names of registered voters that could not be verified. They walked away with their sponsors and waited for another day, like now, to forge another voter’s signatures for another Recall “game” as the SA to Kogi State Governor called it. If you accommodate a crime, it will flourish. As a result Recall exercise is now a joke in Kogi state. 7 years later, the same sponsors of the 2018 Recall petition are on another Recall petition. People that are supposed to be prosecuted for a crime are not. One of the reasons why Nigeria is not working.

This time around, they added lies to deceive the public for the Recall “game”. They announced that the public should come to named locations for an Empowerment Scheme with their voter’s card. Only to realise that they were gathered to fill out a Recall form. After the lie was discovered, the people left with a statement that Senator Natasha H Akpoti Uduaghan is the best that has happened to Kogi Central since the creation of Kogi State and has done nothing wrong for a Recall. How do you recall a performing senator? That’s madness. The Recall perpetrators didn’t give up.

They went ahead and manufactured over 250,000 signatures within the weekend to initiate the Recall process. However, Kogi Central has 580,000 registered voters but 106,303 (18.32%) voted in 2023 in the keenly contested senatorial election. But over 250,000 signatures of voters were generated for a Recall over a weekend. This means that people that ain’t willing to participate in the election participated in the Recall petition. That makes no sense.

Then, a few hours later, leaked video clips surfaced on how and where the signatures were manufactured. The videos showed known faces of APC political officeholders and members in Oboroke, Ihima, using what looks like an INEC register to fill out the Recall petition form. That was how 250,000 signatures were generated.

The petition was submitted to the INEC by one Charity Omole Ijese, a special adviser to the Kogi state governor on Women and Youth. She left her office to manufacture and submit signatures for a Recall. I guess that is a part of her job description. An indication that the agents of the state government are responsible for the Recall drama. APC want to recall a PDP senator they didn’t vote for. Even though Charity claimed: “we voted her”.

The address on the initial petition submission cover letter dated 25th March 2025 that had the Governor’s SA as the lead petitioner was simply “Okene”, which INEC said was not definite for contacting the petitioners. A petitioner must be acquainted with a petition procedure. Ignorance is not an excuse. Rather than dismissing the petition on the grounds of procedural error, INEC played the role of Mr Nice Guy and requested the definite address and contacts of all the representatives. I never knew INEC was that nice.

The letter to submit the requested information has a location change and a change of lead petitioner. The lead petitioner changed from Charity Omole Ijese to Salihu Habib. The location of the petition changed from Okene to Ihima. These are two different locations in 2 different LGAs. It was dated 26th March 2025 with the address “No 4 Oboroke Eba, Ihima, Okehi LGA”. This also appears not definite without street name. Houses in Oboroke and Ihima, in general, are not numbered. Popular people’s houses are mostly used as landmarks for address descriptions. There is even no such location referred to as “Oboroke Eba” in Oboroke, Ihima.

If the address is non-existent, it means that the organisation, Kogi Central Political Frontier, that submitted the information is questionable. From inquiry, people in Oboroke, Ihima and Kogi Central are not aware of the existence of such an organisation. While Charity Omole Ijese said the Recall petition was from “Concerned Women and Youth in Kogi Central”, a day later, it changed to Kogi Central Political Frontier. They seem unorganized and uncoordinated but INEC accommodated all the errors.

So, did over 250,000 people of Kogi Central senatorial district truly come out to give their signatures to the unknown organisation to file a petition on their behalf to Recall their Senator? AniEbira are not stupid. The reason for forged signatures.

Recall is a serious issue and the proceedings consume public resources. INEC need to take the credentials of the petitioners seriously. Therefore, all facts relating to the petitioners need to be verified by INEC before investing our resources in another futile exercise as they did in Kogi West in 2018. So the questions are: is “Kogi Central Political Frontier” existing as an organisation? Is it registered with the CAC? When was it registered? Who were the promoters of the organisation?  Who are the trustees? What constitutes its objectives? On what ground is the organisation coordinating a Recall of a senator?

Recall is constitutional and there is nothing wrong with that if there is a ground for it. But INEC has had a Senator Recall experience with Kogi state in Kogi West. A Recall where only about 18% of the signatures submitted were verified. Is INEC willing to waste another resource on a Recall petition with video evidence of forgery and obvious holes right from submission?

To INEC Nigeria, many Nigerians have reservations about their confidence in you. This is another chance to prove everyone wrong. Before investing our resources to start the verification of another set of forged signatures of registered voters, first verify the address of the petitioners and the existence of the organisation, Kogi Central Political Frontier. If the information is false, the petitioners should be prosecuted to serve as a lesson for the future. DSS will do a good job on that.

This Recall joke from Kogi State will not stop till people are prosecuted for signature forgery under Section 467 of the Criminal Code Act and wasting INEC resources and time. If we don’t make an example, people won’t stop being used to forge signatures. We need to stop charlatans from joking with an important exercise like “Recall”. We can’t be wasting resources on a futile mission. Our resources must be utilised properly.

All eyes are on INEC! All eyes are on Kogi Central!

…Ireyi Zubair writes from Zaria.