Kogi Central indigenes have described the recent court injunction obtained by the embattled lawmaker representing the Senatorial District, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission from receiving a petition for her recall, as a sign that “she has realized that she is as good as gone.”
Recall that a Federal High Court sitting in Lokoja on Thursday and presided over by Justice Isa Dashen, has granted an interim injunction baring the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from receiving petition for the purpose of initiating a re-call process against Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Justice Dashen also restricted INEC staff, agents, privies or assigns from accepting or acting on any petition containing fictitious signatures of purported members of Kogi Central Senatorial District and conducting any referendum upon such pending the determination of the Motion on Notice to the same effect.
But according to the constituents, who cut across the five local government areas of the Senatorial District, once intentions are not pure, individuals are bound to commit irreversible blunders, “which is the case of Mrs. Akpoti-Uduaghan, even in the construction of her court injunction statement.”
In a statement on Friday by the Kogi Central Renaissance Assembly, and signed by the Coordinator, Adeku Joshua; and Secretary, Maleek Sule, the constituents claimed that desperation had pushed the senator to describe the recall signatures as fictitious, saying that should have been left for INEC to unravel during its verification exercise.
“It is laughable that the same person who has called the recall process a sham is the same person that has gone to tell the court to restrain the electoral umpire from receiving or acting on the petition, even when she says the signatures are fictitious.
“We understand your plight. This is last-minute desperation to save yourself the embarrassment of a recall. But we, Constituents of Kogi Central, insist that you have already embarrassed both yourself and the District, and home you shall come.
“The courts are for everybody. You can’t force yourself on us. Even you should know that this your course of action is dead on arrival,” the statement, said.
The Kogi Central indigenes insisted that they would follow the recall process through in order to redeem their image, the image of the state and that of Nigeria at large.
“We, Ebiras, are not enablers of blackmail and unruly behaviour. We stand by this recall and will see it through. The world should know that we are people of integrity. Enough of embarrassing the entire country on the world stage over ridiculous allegations backed by no evidence,” they declared.
A Federal High Court sitting in Lokoja, Kogi State had, on Friday, granted an interim injunction restraining INEC, its staff, or agents from receiving, accepting, or acting on any petition containing what the Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan called “fictitious signatures of purported members of the Kogi Central Senatorial District.”