Dino Melaye and Smart Adeyemi
The lawmaker representing Kogi West senatorial district in the National Assembly, Senator Smart Adeyemi, has been named as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation.
President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, announced this on Friday during the last plenary session for 2019.
Senator Adeyemi replaces Senator Dino Melaye who held the position until he left the Senate.
The Red Chamber of the National Assembly, thereafter, adjourned plenary until January 28, 2020.
Senator Adeyemi unseated Senator Melaye on November 30 to return to the Senate for a third term, after a Court of Appeal in Abuja dismissed an appeal filed by Melaye challenging the nullification of his victory in the general elections.
In line with the order of the court, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted a fresh election on November 16.
INEC was, however, forced to conduct a supplementary poll after the rerun election failed to produce a winner as it was said to have been marred by violence and other electoral malpractices.
Although the results of the poll favoured Senator Adeyemi who polled 80,118 votes as against Senator Melaye’s 59,548 votes, the returning officer had said that he was constrained by law to declare a winner.
At the end of the supplementary exercise, the electoral umpire returned Senator Adeyemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the election.
He lawmaker polled a total of 88,373 votes to beat Senator Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 62,133 votes.
Ambassador Rufus Aiyenigba of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) came third in the poll with 659 votes and was trailed by John Olabode and Adeyemi Taiwo of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Nigeria Elements Progressive Party (NEPP) who polled 262 and 119 votes respectively.
