The Independent National Electoral Commission on Monday asked Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court in Abuja to allow it to serve the Kogi West senator, Dino Melaye, the petition requesting the senator’s recall and other accompanying documents, through substituted means.
Justice Dimgba had in his judgment delivered on September 11, 2017 permitted INEC to proceed with the exercise of verifying the signatures of the 188,588 registered voters who were said to have signed in support of the recall process.
The judge had ordered that the senator be served with the recall petition and other accompanying documents as a pre-condition for commencement of the verification exercise.
But, INEC, through its lawyer, Mr. Olawale Ibrahim, told the judge on Monday that all its attempts to serve the senator personally, as ordered by the court on September 11, had been futile.
Ibrahim, in an ex parte application, sought the court’s order directing substituted means of serving the senator by dumping the documents in front of Melaye’s office at the National Assembly.
But a counsel, Nkem Okoro of the law firm of Mike Ozekhome (SAN), Melaye’s lead counsel, told the judge that the senator had been away from the country.
The judge, in his response, said he was informed in the morning of Monday of the “arrival of a motion ex parte by INEC for substituted service of the petition.”
He therefore directed that “INEC should make one more attempt at personal service on Melaye or through his counsel.”
The judge noted that “only if that fails” could he be disposed to taking the INEC’s ex parte application.
Lawyers for both parties agreed that the matter be adjourned until September 28 “for report of service and / or hearing of the ex parte and all pending applications in the unlikely event that personal service still fails.”
