Attempt to recall Senator Dino Melaye representing Kogi West suffered a setback yesterday as the verification exercise failed woefully. Less than six percent of the petitioners came out for the signature verification exercise. But, fifty one percent of the total number of signatories is required by law to be verified for the process to continue to the next stage.

The verification exercise was marred by poor turnout of petitioners as well as incidences of forged or fictitious signatures and names in the wards where the exercise took place. At the end of the exercise, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said only 18,742 out of 189,870 constituents that signed the petition representing a meager 5.34% of the total number of registered voters (351,146) in Kogi West came out for the signature verification exercise.

INEC’s presiding officer for the verification exercise, Prof Okente Morthy of the University of Abuja who announced the result said that the number of signatures verified fell short of the number required.

Reacting to the outcome from his sick bed, Senator Melaye in his Twitter handle said “Thank you my people. God bless you all. Thank you for the confidence reposed on me. I will not let you down. I will always stand by the truth and the people at all times. God bless Kogi West. Every lie has an expiry date. Forces of evil will never triumph over forces of light. God is with us,”

Senator Melaye has been in the hospital since Tuesday last week,following injuries sustained when he jumped out of a Police vehicle while being taken to Kogi for investigation into a gun-running allegation. His victory is seen as a humiliation of his political traducers.

Governor Yahaya Bello has been fingered severally by Senator Melaye as being behind his travails. He has also gone ahead to wax some songs against the governor and posted them on the social media.