INEC spent N100m on Dino Melaye’s failed recall –Yakubu

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed that the process to recall the Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial district, Dino Melaye, gulped a whopping N100 million.

The Commission’s chairman, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, made the disclosure while debunking the claims by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the Commission expended N1 billion on the Melaye’s recall.

“On how much it cost the commission to prosecute the recall process of the Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial district, you will remember that the recall is the same thing like conducting fresh election.

“We conducted the recall in 552 polling units in seven Local Government Areas in the state. The cost of the recall was a little over N100 million not N1 billion as claimed. The substantial part of it went into the period of preparation for the recall process,” he said.

Reacting to the report on the underage voting during the Kano state LGA election, he absolved the commission of any complicity, claiming that the voters register INEC gave to Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC) was not used.

“The commission gave the voters register to the KSIEC and they acknowledged the receipt of it. The second issue on the report is whether underage persons voted in Kano using voters register and that is what we said that there is no connection between what transpired in Kano and our voters register.

“In many places they did not even make use of the register and there was no accreditation of voters. However, as for whether underage persons voted in the Kano elections, it was not the concern of the commission. The process of the election was completely independent of the electoral body.

“For the fact that we experienced this in Kano, we will subject the register nationwide to scrutiny. Section 12 (1) of the Electoral Act is actually very clear about who is eligible to register in Nigeria and how the voters register is supposed to be cleaned up.

“At the end of every quarter of the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), the entire register will be displayed at the registration centres. The purpose is for the citizens to look at the register and draw the attention of the commission to the prevalence of any ineligible person in the register. We are not only pasting names but the complete register with the pictures.

“We also make the copies available to all the political parties in accordance with the law. We made the copies available to all the 64 registered political parties February this year. As we speak, we have not received a single complain from any political party in the prevalence of indelible persons on the register.

“Let me reiterate that this Commission is convinced that we now have a dependable register, even if it is not perfect. We believe that it is a huge national asset, easily the largest database of Nigerians in existence today containing over 70 million entries of names, addresses, photographs, ten fingerprints, telephone numbers etc.”

On the much-awaited budget for the 2019 general elections, he said: “We made our submission to the executive which we have been assured that soon it will be submitted to the National Assembly which we will appear to defend. The details of the amount will be made public once it is ready.”

He equally reiterated his earlier claim that the commission was not planning to create 30,000 new polling units, stressing: “We are not creating any new polling units before the 2019 general elections because there is no time to do so.”