To those Kogi West folks grumbling and squirming, stop agonizing and organize. No Senator has ever been recalled in Nigeria since 1999 because the procedure is cumbersome and a Senator has enough stolen money to scuttle the process. In the case of Kogi West, Saraki will also certainly try to scuttle a recall. A criminal of Saraki’s standing cannot afford to lose a supporting criminal of Dino’s calibre.

However, you must understand the psychology of your rulers. They always bet on your fatalism and submission. What can we do? They are too powerful?

You need to start with a signature drive. Half of those registered to vote in his constituency must sign a recall petition for it to be activated. There are other steps. Here they are:

1 More than half of the registered voters in the Senator’s senatorial district write, sign and send a petition to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC alleging their loss of confidence in the senatorial

2 The petition must be signed, and arranged according to polling units, wards, Local Government Areas, and constituency.

3 INEC notifies the Senator sought to be recalled, stating that it has received a petition for his or her recall, if the petition is valid

4 INEC issues a public notice or announcement stating the date, time and location of the verification of signatures to the petition

5 INEC verifies the signatures to the petition at the designation. The signatories must be individuals who appear on the voters’ register.

6 INEC conducts a referendum if more than one half (50% + 1) of the signatories are verified

7 INEC writes to the petitioners stating that the minimum requirements for a referendum were not met, if the number verified is less than one half of the registered voters in that constituency. The petition will therefore be dismissed.

8 INEC conducts a referendum within 90 days of receipt of the petition if the minimum requirements for a referendum are met. The referendum will be a simple yes or no vote on whether the Senator should be recalled, and will be decided by simple majority of the votes of the persons registered to vote in that Senator’s constituency.

9 If majority of the voters in the constituency vote ‘yes’ the Chairman of the INEC will send a Certificate of Recall to the Senate President to effect the recall.

10 The Senate President will show affected senator the way out of the Senate.

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Pius Adesanmi, a professor of English, is Director of the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Canada