 was sent to Senator){kind=link}
The outcome, which will be made public, shall determine the next step to be taken by the Commission.
Recall Petition – An official communication from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was sent to Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan yesterday.
Specifically, it is a notification that she has received a petition from voters in her Constituency demanding that she be pulled from office.
Leadership of Senate also received the same notification that was issued by INEC.
It was confirmed in a statement by Sam Olumekun, who is the INEC National Commissioner and the Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee. He stated that the commission had received the addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of representatives of the petitioners, which were not initially attached.
Olumekun said, “Further to the statement issued yesterday, Tuesday 25th March 2025, the Commission hereby confirms that the contact address of representatives of the petitioners, their telephone numbers and e-mail addresses have now been provided in a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Commission, dated today Wednesday 26th March 2025.
“As provided in Clause 2(a) of the Commission’s Regulations and Guidelines for Recall 2024, a letter has been written to notify the Senator sought to be recalled about the receipt of the petition and delivered to her official address.
“The same letter has been copied to the presiding officer of the Senate and published on the Commission’s website.
“The next step is to scrutinise the list of signatories submitted by the petitioners to ascertain that the petition is signed by more than one half (over 50%) of the registered voters in the Constituency.
“This will be done in the coming days. The outcome, which will be made public, shall determine the next step to be taken by the Commission. We once again reassure Nigerians that the process will be open and transparent.”
In a Senate Committee on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions sittings on Wednesday, petitioner Zubairu Yakubu and former education minister Dr. Oby Ezekwesili appeared to defend the claims.
The Committee rejected her request, citing ongoing litigation as the reason. Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi (Ebonyi North) and Dr. Ezekwesili exchanged spiteful words during the meeting.
During the argument, Nwaebonyi replied to Ezekwesili, “You are an insult to womanhood,” after she had told him to “shut up.
On the hand, Protesters from Kogi Central gathered at Okene to show their support for the recall and call on the commission to move quickly.
The five LGAs that make up the senatorial district were represented by the people who were part of the Kogi Central Grassroots Movement. The team accused Akpoti-Uduaghan, said that her camp had fabricated videos and manipulated facts on her recall, according to Coordinator AbdulHameed Jimoh and Secretary Mohammed Abdullahi.
Jimoh said, “We are appealing to Nigerians to ignore the lies of a few people on social media about our intention and pay visit to Kogi Central to see what is happening with the process.
“She (Senator Natasha) accused the state government of being behind her recall when she knows that even those who were her strong loyalists in the (Kogi) Central have abandoned her.
“She went to the National Assembly to pursue her personal interest, not the interest of Kogi Central,” Jimoh added.
According to Jimoh, the senator’s camp distributed items to individuals in Okene last weekend in an effort to rally support for a protest the following day.
“They imported people from outside the district to join her very few and reluctant aides and called them Kogi Central constituents.
“The recall process, therefore, is a necessity and deliberate attempt by the people of Kogi Central to tell the whole world that they are not in support of the unruly behaviour of the senator at the assembly.
“She should leave the stage to face her strange activism and quarrels so that we can have quality representation.”