Can Senator Natasha Survive the Recall Process from the Senate?
As INEC is said to have received over 250,000 signatures out of the 474,554 registered voters in Kogi Central District, which is required to kickstart the recall process?
Let’s look into the possibilities and impossibilities of the process:
The guidelines for recalling a Senator empower INEC to conduct the recall after receiving a petition signed by more than 50% of the registered voters in the Senatorial District.
Registered Voters in Kogi Central (474,554):
1. Ajaokuta: 96,504
2. Adavi: 114,663
3. Ogori: 17,688
4. Okene: 151,243
5. Okehi: 94,456
From the above, more than 237,000 voters need to sign the petition that will be submitted to INEC. This is the first hurdle, which those behind the push for Senator Natasha’s recall claim to have achieved, pending INEC verification.
Can the submitted signatures be verified by INEC as authentic to kickstart the recall process of Senator Natasha, considering the fact that the Senatorial District only generated about 110,000 total votes during the election that produced Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as Senator?
Here’s how they voted in that election:
• Natasha Akpoti: 54,074
• Abubakar Ohere: 51,291
• Other candidates: 4,000 votes
All eyes are on INEC’s verification of these submitted signatures, as that will be the main hurdle.
Meanwhile, Senator Natasha is not idle, as she is fighting to stop the process through a Lokoja High Court order issued last week:
“That an interim injunction is granted restraining the defendant (INEC), staff, agents, privies, or assigns from receiving, accepting, or acting in any way whatsoever on any purported petitions submitted to the defendant by any person or persons, containing fictitious signatures and names of purported members of the said district, and conducting any referendum to initiate a recall process of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as Senator, pending the determination of the motion.”
While Natasha’s camp was still celebrating the court injunction, the same court vacated the order a day or so later, clearing legal impediments for the process.
With INEC having accepted the submitted signatures, they are now empowered to move into signature verifications, which the law caps at least 50%, with one of the signatures needing to be authenticated for the recall process to move to the next stage.
Can Senator Natasha, who is abroad, counter those pushing for her recall from the Senate at this stage? Or will she return to lead the fight on the ground? Time will tell.
Voting Stage:
If, by chance, those behind her recall survive the signature verification (which will be very difficult), there will be a voting stage that requires only a simple majority of votes from the senatorial zone to decide whether to recall her or not. If they vote yes, she will be recalled. If they vote no, she will survive.
But this is not the first time such an attempt to recall a senator in Kogi State has occurred. It happened in 2018 against Senator Dino Melaye, but he survived the signature verification stage.
The attempt to recall Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) flopped following a low turnout for the verification of signatures of petitioners. Results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at the end of the exercise showed that only 18,742 signatories to the recall petition could be verified out of the 189,870 signatories on the petition, thereby failing to achieve the required 50% plus one signatories.
Can the signatures submitted to recall Senator Natasha fail the verification stage? Can 50% plus one of the 250,000 (about 125,000) signatories submitted be authenticated on the date INEC will fix for the exercise? If those behind this get 125,000 for verification across polling stations, then Natasha is as good as gone.
But I doubt if they will be able to get such numbers, knowing that there will likely be apathy/low turnout on the said date. If the general election could only muster 110,000 votes, it will be almost impossible to get 125,000 in a special election for the same District.
Politically speaking, this is a route Natasha should not have been allowed to navigate, knowing that she defeated Yaya Bello-led camp, who is the immediate past governor, and has his ally as the current governor, with access to public funds.
Fighting multiple political battles is bad idea.
I wish she survives this and learns from it.
The question remains: Can Senator Natasha survive this?
March 24, 2025
Excerpt from Ebuka Okoye
Will Sen. Natasha H Akpoti Be Recalled?
1.) Recalling an elected senator in Nigeria is not an easy process.2.) It involves several steps, as outlined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) guidelines.3.) The process begins with a petition signed by more than one-half of the persons registered to vote in the senator’s constituency, alleging their loss of confidence in the senator (Constitution, Section 69).4.) The petition must be arranged according to polling units, wards, local government areas, and constituency.5.) Once the petition is received by the Chairman of INEC, the commission verifies the signatures to ensure they are genuine and belong to registered voters in the constituency.6.) The verification process is done through a public hearing where signatories confirm their support for the recall petition (INEC Guidelines, 2019).7.) If the signatures are successfully verified, INEC conducts a referendum within 90 days of receiving the petition (Constitution, Section 69).8.) The referendum is a simple YES or NO vote on whether the senator should be recalled, and it requires a simple majority of the votes of the persons registered to vote in that senator’s constituency.9.) If a referendum is carried out and the voters in that constituency vote to recall the senator, the Chairman of INEC sends a Certificate of Recall to the Senate President to effect the recall (Constitution, Section 69).10.) The Senate President will then declare the senatorial seat vacant, and a by-election is conducted to elect a new senator for the constituency.11.) Now, despite the provisions outlined in the Constitution and INEC guidelines as I have explained above, the recall process in Nigeria is often challenging and rarely successful.12.) In 2009, there was a move to recall Senator Osita Izunaso, who represented Imo West Senatorial District, with a petition submitted to INEC. But it didn’t see the light of the day.13.) A similar attempt was made in Orlu in 2006, targeting Senator Arthur Nzeribe, when a “One Million March” was allegedly staged by the then Governor of Imo State. This too didn’t see the light of the day.14.) Sen. Aloysius Etok faced a similar situation in 2013 in Akwa Ibom State when he failed to apologise to Sen. Godswill Akpabio, the then Governor of Akwa Ibom State. This particular one didn’t fly too.15.) Withal, many legislators have faced recall processes in the past, but none has been successful.16.) One of the major challenges leading to its unsuccessfulness is the verification process which can be cumbersome, as many constituents may not even know why their signatures were collected.17.) This notwithstanding, the recall process remains an important mechanism for holding elected officials accountable to their constituents, even though it has proven unsuccessful in the past.18.) The question now is: will Sen. Natasha’s recall process see the light of the day? -Chukwuma Okafor
