Your Senate lacks the powers to usurp INEC’s constitutional duties on Dino Melaye’s recall, SAN warns Saraki
For uttering the statement that the fate of Dino Melaye falls on Senate and not on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Senator Bukola Saraki is under fire of a senior Nigerian lawyer, who asks the INEC to go ahead and effect the Kogi West senator’s recall process first and let Nigerians see what the Senate will do.
Saraki, a medical doctor by discipline and lawmaker by political calling, is Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The Senate President, Saraki, had said on Tuesday that the fate of Senator Dino Melaye would be decided by the Senate and not by INEC.
He stated this less than 24 hours after INEC released a time-table on the process for the recall of the Kogi West Senator.
But in a swift reaction during a telephone interview with The DEFENDER Wednesday night, Mr. Abioye Oloyede Asanike, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said Senate President Bukola Saraki could not have meant what he reportedly said.
The senior lawyer said, “I don’t think he is right. The constitution provides for INEC to organise a referendum in constituency where Dino Melaye is representing. If they are able to get the percentage stipulated by the law and the people say he should be recalled, so be it. It is the duty of the INEC. So, I don’t know what role they (Senate) want to play there.”
On why it was possible for Senator Saraki to make such comment capable of generating constitutional issue without bothering about the consequences, the senior lasyer said:
“You know the type of politics we run in this country; we are lawless people. Let INEC effect the process for the recall of Melaye first and let them, the Senate say no. Then, they will understand what law is all about.”
