* Melaye

The ding-dong battle for the recall of Senator Dino Melaye representing Kogi West Senatorial District took another step towards  climax as  the Court of Appeal, Abuja division, in a unanimous judgement Friday   dismissed all grounds of appeal filed by Melaye against the judgment delivered by Justice Nnamdi  Dimgba of Federal High Court, Abuja. 

 The lower court ought not to have entertained Melaye's suit an initio, the appellate court ruled, thus clearing legal obstacles to the recall process of the senator.

 Justice  Dimgba of the Federal High Court,  Abuja,  had on September 11, 2017 dismissed a suit filed by Melaye, seeking to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC from initiating his recall from the National Assembly, holding that the lawmaker’s suit was  'hasty, premature and presumptuous".  He therefore ordered the INEC to ahead with its planned verification exercise.

Justice Dimgba also approved that INEC proceed with the exercise of verifying the signatures of the 188,588 registered voters who allegedly  signed in support of the recall process.

 The 188,588 voters were said to have constituted 52.3 per cent of the 360,098 total registered voters in the Kogi West Senatorial District.

 Consequently, the trial judge held that the only option available for Melaye, is for him to go through the verification process to be conducted by INEC. 

 Dissatisfied, Melaye headed to the appellate court, querying the order made by Justice Dimgba.

 He has however met a brickwall, as Justice Tunde Awotoye, leading two other Justices, read the lead judgement.

 The appellate court held that the 90 days stipulated by the Constitution within which a recall process will take place "has no time limitation as it can be extended. 

 The 90 days period provided by the Constitution for INEC to commence the process of recall can be extended, since it has not started to run, the appellate court held.
Consequently,  the Court of Appeal struck out the suit filed at the Federal High Court on the ground that there was no cause of action.

 On the issue of lack of fair hearing complained by Melaye, Justice Awotoye dismissed the claim on the grounds that "INEC is neither a tribunal nor a court of law.
Justice Awotoye added that the powers of INEC is a statutorily given by the Constitution, stressing that even the court cannot take away the powers of INEC to conduct a referendum. 

 "Such statutory bodies like the INEC should be allowed to exercise their statutory powers without interference by the court.

 "The appellant cannot claim that his right of fair hearing was infringed upon. His right to fair hearing has not been violated since INEC as a statutory body is not a tribunal neither is it a court of law.

 "The appellant has not disclosed any cause of action and the suit ought to have been struck out by the trial court for not disclosing any cause of action.

 "I agree with the decision of the trial court. Ordinarily, it ought to have struck out the suit for non disclosure of cause of action. 

 "This is because where there is no cause of action, the court has no jurisdiction to hear the suit. 

 "Having resolved all the issues in the appeal against the appellant, I hereby struck out the suit and dismiss the appeal, Justice Awotoye held.