BY PRINCELY ONYENWE, IMO
Over the weekend, the National Assembly concurred with the Senate to pass the electoral act that rejected the Electronic transmission of Election RESULTS and this has roared tension all over the Federation.
Recall that a representative of the Executive Chairman of NCC, Mr Adeleke Adewolu disclosed to pressmen that a survey of 119,000 polling units carried out by the Commission revealed that 150 per cent of polling units in Nigeria do not have the needed network coverage for the transmission of Election RESULTS.
9News Nigeria reports that the NIGERIAN communication Commission NCC told the lawmakers that they do not have the capacity based on the fact that only about 50% of the polling units in NIGERIA have 3G coverage for transmission of RESULTS to INEC backroom server from places with 3G network and as such the entire results will not be captured as expected.
Reps, therefore, rejects e- transmission of Election RESULTS because of the lack of capacity of NCC to transmit election results.
Though this act is yet to become a bill as acceptable by law, the majority of NIGERIA’s electorate has rejected such an offer by the Senate.
The PDP however staged a walkout as the House of Representatives passed the electoral act amendment and the petroleum industrial bill (PIB).
It was an act of dishonour of members of House of REPS to dis-honourably stop a plenary by a staged protest burn out of a surprising act in the amendment of the constitution.
A few minutes after the uproar, speaker Femi appealed for a continuation of the process that led to the adoption of striking off of e-transmission of Election RESULTS expectedly to be applied in the forthcoming 2023 Elections.
Our correspondent reports that as the situation is, the bill being read at the floor of the house there times has by adoption become a bill to be enacted in the constitution of the federal republic of NIGERIA pending its future amendment that may come up after series of years of future elections in NIGERIA.
I want to bring to our notice that before this bill was passed, speaker Femi had explained that the house had asked its members in the conference to return to the Senate colleagues and renegotiate the equity percentage for host Communities to five per cent on Thursday, but on getting to the Senate, they had adopted three per cent and adjourned.
Speaker Femi stated that in order not to allow the bill to suffer the fate it had gone through in the past, it was better to pass it with the three per cent and seek for amendment later in the future.
This Development, therefore, has set confusion among members of the Reps and Senate and regret to NIGERIANS who had thought the better way forward will be the Electronic transmission of Election RESULTS in 2023.
Similarly, House spokesman, Benjamin Kalu APC ABIA, said no law is perfect or permanent and on that, the house will continue to perfect its laws as the need arises.
On the contrary, the minority caucus has accused the majority APC of stage managing the entire process to favour them.
It was indeed a disappointing scenario at the National Assembly for Reps to step down e- transmission in this egalitarian era where developing countries have been hooked to advanced technology and NIGERIA is still talking about the lack of needed capacity to upgrade to Electronic transmission of Election RESULTS.
But from interviews conducted outside the premises, NIGERIANS who spoke with 9News Nigeria on the basis of anonymous Insist that INEC does not need such 3G and 2G theory of the NCC to give the country what it deserves in the next upcoming Elections through e-transmission.
When asked the reason INEC was asked to stay back, they told the press that they do not want INEC to be seen to be biased and that was why INEC was deprived of their legal right to join the session.
Where exactly is NIGERIA going to with the rejection of e- transmission of Election RESULTS??
Please, leave your comments below.
9News Nigeria (Owerri)
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