The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has notified the suspended Kogi Central Senator, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, about the receipt of a petition to recall her from the National Assembly.
The commission disclosed this in a statement issued on Wednesday in Abuja by its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Sam Olumekun.
Olumekun also confirmed that the commission had received contact addresses of representatives of the petitioners seeking to recall Akpoti-Uduaghan.
He said the telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of the representatives of the petitioners had been provided to INEC in a letter dated March 27 and addressed to the chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu.
He said: “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 half (over 50 percent) 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.”
Olumekun reassured Nigerians that the recall process would be open and transparent.
A group of registered voters from Kogi Central Senatorial District had on Monday submitted a petition to INEC and urged the commission to commence the recall process of Akpoti-Uduaghan.
The constituents, in the letter signed by the Lead Petitioner, Salihu Habib, said they no longer had confidence in Akpoti-Uduaghan as their senator and representative in the National Assembly.
INEC on Tuesday, confirmed the receipt of the petition, accompanied by six bags of documents said to be signatures collected from more than half of the 474,554 registered voters from the senatorial district.