New Telegraph

REPS REJECT E-TRANSMISSION OF ELECTION RESULTS

…as opposition members stage walkout

• We lack capacity to transmit results –NCC

Members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Friday staged a walk out as the House of Representatives passed the electoral act amendment and the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). In passing the electoral act, the House concurred with the Senate by jettisoning the controversial clause 52(2) thereby rejecting electronic transmission of result. It also joined the Senate in approving 3%equity for oil host communities in the PIB instead of the 5% ITS EARLIER preferred. Meanwhile, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said it does not have the required teledensity to transmit elections result electronically. At the resumed sitting of the House, Speaker Femi Gbajabimila, invited representatives of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to brief the House and field questions from members on the possibility of transmitting elections electronically in the country. After the briefing and answer session, the House went into continuation of voting on the electoral act amendment report from where they stopped on Thursday. But the proceedings of the plenary were marred by protests as opposition lawmakers insisted that the deputy speaker, Ahmed Idris Wase, must revisit clause 52(2) and votes retaken. Speaker Gbajabiamila had appealed to members to allow the deputy speaker to continue with the process. However, Wase started on clause 55 jumping the controversial 52. Minority leader, Ndudi Elumelu moved that the deputy speaker must revisit clause 52 and take a fresh vote. But when Wase refused Elumelu led other members of opposition out of the chambers in protest. In the absence of majority of the minority members, Wase went ahead reading all the clauses as the APC members kept chorusing “carried, carried, carried”, while he hits the gavel. He also revisited clause 52 and put it to the vote and the APC members all adopted it in unison. After the adoption of the electrical act, a supplementary order was brought in with the PIB report and it was considered and adopted. Before it was adopted, Gbajabiamila explained that the House had asked its members in the conference to return to their 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. He said in order not to allow the bill 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 in the future.

We don’t have capacity to transmit result –NCC

Earlier, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) told the lawmakers that they do not have the capacity to transmit results electronically. A representative of the executive chairman of NCC, Mr. Adeleke Adewolu, who disclosed this while briefing the House, informed 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. According to him, only about 50 per cent of the polling units in Nigeria have 3G coverage for transmission of results. He said a little over 40 per cent have 2G network, while the rest had less. Another member of the NCC team, Mr. Ubale Maska, while explaining further, told the lawmakers that the survey was carried out in 2018, adding that 2G network was not enough to transmit results. He also informed that the server was vulnerable to hacking, drawing examples from the 2016 US elections, which were said to have been affected by hackers. Asked if the Point of Sale, PoS technology, being used by market women can’t be utilised by INEC during elections, he said the system uses sim cards which predisposes it to manipulation. He also told the lawmakers that offline upload of results in places without network doesn’t guarantee accuracy as much as direct transmission of results to the INEC backroom server from places with 3G network.

We are disappointed in Wase –PDP

Reps Briefing newsmen after their walked out, minority leader, Ndudi Elumelu, expressed disappointment in the manner the pressing deputy speaker ignored valid points of Order raised by colleagues to enable the House do the right thing. “By walking out it clearly shows that we are disappointed in the action of the chairman of the Committee of the Whole which in effect is the deputy speaker, Idris Wase, because even when there was clear evidence that the House was yet to decide on clause 52, he claimed to have passed it. “And secondly, this has nothing to do with minority caucus alone, because Faleke also brought an amendment in agreement to our belief that results should be electronically transmitted, but the man still killed it,” Elumelu said. He accused the majority caucus of stage-managing the whole process to make look like their fulfilled every requirements even when they were deceiving Nigerians. “We found out that INEC was asked to stay back. We tried to inquire why, they told us that it’s because they do not want INEC to be seen to be biased and that was why they deprived INEC from coming in. T ‘‘The NCC itself also, they asked the Executive Vice Chairman not to show up and thereby he resulted in asking somebody in capacity of a director to show up. Even the director himself couldn’t even substantiate issues.’’ Also reacting to the development, Mark Gbillah (PDP, Benue), carpeted NCC and its theory of 2G & 3G network coverage, insisting that INEC does not need such facilities to transmit election results electronically. In his reaction Boma Goodhead (PDP, Rivers) said by destroying the nations democracy, it would come back to haunt them. He said it was the tyranny of the majority. Also, reactingUzoma Nkem-Abonta (PDP, Abia), said it was one of the worst action taken by the 9th House of Representatives. But in her briefing, chairman of the House committee on electoral matters, Aishatu Dukku (APC, Gombe), described the passage of the bill as a “ticket to a free, fair and credible election in 2023.” Similarly, House spokesman, Benjamin Kalu (APC Abia), said no law is perfect, so the house will continue perfecting its laws as the need arises.

Read Previous

COVID-19: FG urges Nigerians to disregard rumours on vaccination

Read Next

Incessant kidnappings, killings: Declare state of emergency in Kaduna –Gen Ikponmwen

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *