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Kogi Poll: Whether I Voted Or Not Is Immaterial – Dino Melaye

"Legally, it has no relevance to the election. Whether I voted or not, it is immaterial."


dino-melaye-
Melaye accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of favouring the ruling APC.

 

Dino Melaye says casting his vote or otherwise in the just-concluded Kogi State governorship election is immaterial, maintaining that he was rigged out in the exercise. 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came third – 46,362 votes –  with the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s Usman Ododo winning the election in the North-Central state.

Despite claims that Melaye did not even vote during the Saturday poll, the PDP flagbearer argues that it does not matter in the scheme of things.

READ ALSO: APC’s Ododo Defeats Ajaka, Melaye To Win Kogi Gov Election

“The issue of voting or not voting has no legal status. People win elections in prison,” he said on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today. 

“Legally, it has no relevance to the election. Whether I voted or not, it is immaterial.”

Senator Melaye maintained: “I don’t want to talk about it” as he argued that there was no election in Kogi State on Saturday.

He also alleged that some unnamed political enemies met to decide “he must become a distant third” in Saturday’s keenly contested election.

“A meeting was held and they said, ‘Dino Melaye must not come second because if he comes second, it’s dangerous… so, he must become a distant third.’ There was no election; there was only allocation of votes,” the former lawmaker claimed.

‘Lagos was Given to Labour’

According to him, the same thing happened in the February 25 presidential election with Labour Party (LP) winning Lagos State.

Melaye argued that the same thing played out in the presidential election of February 25, 2023.

“Lagos was given to Labour,” he added. “Labour should not think they won [in] Lagos; it was deliberate. The mathematics was done. The arithmetic was done.”

The Kogi PDP flagbearer claimed that the 2023 New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) presidential candidate Rabiu Kwankwaso was “given Kano, knowing fully well that other states had been padded”.

That was the “exact formula that was used in Kogi State,” according to Melaye.