THE senator who represented kogi west in the seventh assembly, senator Dino Melaye have lost his seat to senator Smart Adeyemi of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Saturday election.
Adeyemi polled a total of 88,373 votes to dwarf his main opponent Dino Melaye who polled 62,133 votes.
Earlier the returning officer, Professor Olaide Lawal from Federal University, Oye,-Ekiti had said that the rerun became necessary in view of the fact that no clear winner emerged in the last Senatorial.
He said that the margin of win was less than the cancelled votes which means,the election was inconclusive according to electoral laws.
However, the Kogi state residence Electoral Commissioner, Professor James Apam has blamed the low turnout on political parties failure to effectively mobilised their supporters to go out and cast their votes.
He was speaking against the backdrop of voters apathy in most py units visited by our correspondent in Lokoja wards.
While speaking with newsmen shortly before setting out to monitor the election,the REC said the parties should be blamed.
Apam said that instead of the political parties to embark on membership drive aimed at convincing their supporters on the need to come out and vote for them would not do so but turn around to blame INEC for poor turnout of voters.
Our correspondent who went round noticed low turn out blamed on fear of repeat performance of the violence that greeted the November 16 election.
Bala Bariga,a PDP chieftain who spoke with our correspondent at Ward C,Unit 001attributted the low turn out to fear of vote not counting as it was during the last election.
He also said more voters stayed away for fear of being caught in any cross fire.
However,there were no reported case of violence as the few voters on the queue were seen casting their votes without any incidence.
Our correspondent also visited Ward D,Yaragi polling unit 002 where voters were seen casting their votes peacefully.
Meanwhile, former Senator Dino Melaye have vowed to approach the courts to seek redress.
The maverick politician who spoke shortly after casting his vote on Saturday said that he would be approaching the election petition tribunal if the Independent National Electoral Commission does not review the last election.
“What we have as result is fraud… a major fraud,” the November 16 election was a fraud that would not stand.”
He said he has sent petitions to the effect that the earlier election was fraudulent, while “the supplementary election amounts to building something on nothing”.
