Electoral Act: Ekweremadu hopeful of electronic transmission of results

Against the din of condemnation and innuendoes cast on the Senator representing Enugu West and former Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, for his vexatious and conspicuous absence during the debate and passage of the Electoral Bill by the Senate, the senator said he is very optimistic about using electronic transmission come 2023.

His position, which was made known through a press release issued by his media adviser, Uche Anichukwu, in Enugu, on Monday, observed that “Although media reports on Senator Ike Ekweremadu’s official assignment in Montenegro where he attended a pre-scheduled regular session of the International Parliament for Tolerance and Peace IPTP, as Nigeria’s representative and also presented the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, between the National Assembly of Nigeria and the IPTP, have clearly put paid to the false claims and insinuations that the Senator stayed away from the Senate plenary of Thursday, July 15 during which the upper chamber voted on the Electoral Act Repeal and Re-enactment Bill, the Office deems it imperative to further put the record straight and restate his faith that electronic transmission of results will still be part of the 2023 general election.”

The Media Aide explained that “The said MoU will, among many other benefits, enable Nigerian parliamentarians to benefit from training and capacity-building programmes sponsored by the IPTP and allow young Nigerians to benefit from various fully sponsored post-graduate degree programmes in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, mediation, and tolerance in top universities around the globe.”

He explained that Ekweremadu’s unavailability at Senate plenary “does not diminish in any way his credentials in standing to be counted on the side of our democracy. Neither does it shrink his role and doggedness in helping to navigate and push the electronic transmission of results and other key provisions through various landmines at the level of the Joint Technical Committee on the Repeal and Re-enactment of the Electoral Act and the Joint NASS Committee on INEC where he is a member.”

According to him, Ekweremadu’s activities over the years, “led to the introduction of the card reader, electronic voter register, and the test-run of electronic transmission of results in the last Ondo and Edo State governorship elections,” monitored personally by the senator.

He cited other key electoral reforms achieved under Ekweremadu’s watch to include an amendment to Sections 81, 84, and 160 of the Constitution in 2010 to grant INEC financial and administrative independence. Unlike previously when INEC was at the mercy of the Presidency and cleared key decisions with it, Section 160 was amended to expressly provide that in the case of INEC, it’s “powers to make its own rules or otherwise regulate its own procedure shall not be subject to the approval of the President.”

Anichukwu, however, regretted that just as was the case in the last National Assembly when efforts to better the quality of our elections were serially frustrated and it was eventually not signed into law by Mr President, that non-progressives are equally frustrating the current exertions stressing that, adding that was not enough to assume that everybody, who was not present at the July 15 plenary, simply chickened out. “Why would Ekweremadu chicken out?” Anichukwu queried.

He disclosed that Ekweremadu had acknowledged that vested political interests obviously never wanted electronic transmission of results to come to fruition pointing out that they used their number to block it.

The press release said that, however, it is also a fact that the vehemence of those minded against such reform is not new recalling how the Senator nearly lost his life in that cause as armed criminals stormed the Senate on April 18, 2018, to cart away the mace and truncate the discussion of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, which included electronic conduct of elections, and Ekweremadu was presiding on that fateful day and it was on record that he Ekweremadu stood his ground.

“Despite all the odds that have been stacked against him, Ekweremadu has remained consistent and true to his political beliefs and conscience, refusing to legislate out of fear or to fear to legislate,” he reiterated.

The statement described as very unfortunate the brazen fact that those who rode to power on the back of the electoral reforms and conducive democratic environment engendered by PDP administrations had continued to take various caustic measures to frustrate further electoral reforms.

The statement added thatEkweremadu was not deterred by attacks on his person over the outcome of the voting on the electronic transmission of results, “instead, he restated his faith that results of the 2023 elections will ultimately be electronically transmitted because it is the best way to go.”

The senator expressed his resolve and readiness to, work with other patriotic and progressive lawmakers, as was the case of the electronic voting, “to resurrect electronic transmission of results upon the resumption of the National Assembly, starting from the point of harmonisation of the clauses passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives.”

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Electoral Act: Ekweremadu hopeful of electronic transmission of results

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