Election stakeholders have said they will hold the national assembly responsible for any changes to the electoral act amendment bill other than those agreed on the electronic transfer.
Ach. Ezekiel Nya-Etok said this on a live television programme aired, on Thursday, and monitored by our correspondent.
Nya-Etok who appeared alongside a former Presidential aspirant on the platform of the National Conscience Party, (NCP), Tanko Yunusa maintained that the manner the bill has been handled in the assembly was suspicious.
He maintained that the national assembly will be occupied by a non-violent rally, demanding electronic transfer of results that would eliminate what he described as electoral fraud and engender transparency and credibility to the process.
He said Nigerians are already warming up towards free and fair elections which has been promoted by the electoral act amendment but noted that the long delay was not necessary.
His word: “Somebody will have to tell us who altered it, and we will get to the root of it, this is it is not a family affair. This is a Nigerian thing.
“Tanko and I are not in the same party, he is in National Conscience Party (NCP) and I am in African Democratic Congress (ADC). People’s Democratic Party (PDP) or the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) we are united in this,
“We have agreed that let this thing be done free, fair and credible. When someone tells you I will let this out by next month and the committee has finished their work.
“It is just to lay before the House, and when the time came, you delayed by several months, the question was why the delay? That must be a smoking gun.
“Some people must have said, no it cannot be, in the national assembly or within political circles you know, as much as I do that, the moment people are uncomfortable, the next thing is for them to change the area of their discomfort.
“What they do not know is that there some members who by convention do not return to the national because we have a ring around them on zoning. For instance, I am from Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District. We use to rotate between the axis and it is on the term.
“There are some people that have that convention over some period. They have nothing to lose they are not coming back.
“They should know that we have a verbatim report of every proceeding and that these people already have verbatim report of those documents, so if they make any alteration, we already know what the original documents are.
“We are ready to go and sit down, without violence, I am telling you and take my word, they can not, should not, they cannot because as people we are sick and tired of being taken for granted.
“Even if it is not perfect, at least what we have seen so far will make for some level of sanity. Tanko has just said that transmission of results is one of the biggest frauds in this country.
“It is the worst fraud you can imagine. Now by the time you have 20 votes in your unit and you have 10 in my unit, and you are making progress, they just discard that.
“They go to the collation officers and they just change everything. When you see the final figures you are dazed. They tell the officers to announce, if they contest with it, we go to court.
“By the time we have the electronic transmission of result the question of announcement of result under duress does not come up again because even before you announce, you are not really quite significant, it will be just like a ceremony because INEC already has all the result at the back end.
“And because we already know the result, our people have started to warm up. Whether the Speaker says it, or the Senate President say it, I am honestly not bothered.
“Every Nigeria has it, and by the time they laid that result on the floor of the plenary and it is not what was agreed, some members are willing to testify.”
The former NCP Presidential aspirant said though the comment by Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila that the Gazette copy of the bill remained intact, he noted that electronic transfer of results remained critical to the yearnings of all political parties and Nigerians.
On the appointment of Mrs Lauretta Onochie as a Commissioner of INEC, The stakeholders said that her nomination breached the electoral act and what was the advice of the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan who is a custodian of the Act of the national assembly?
It would be recalled that Osun State nominee for Commissioner, Alhaji Muideen Olalekan, into the Independent National Electoral Commission could not be passed following his membership of the ruling All Progressives Congress party.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Kabiru Gaya had told reporters among other things that: “There was a petition against Alhaji, Raheem Muideen Olalekan, from Osun State, based on the constitutional provision of the Act, which said the President should nominate present Commissioners of INEC, people of integrity and good character and they should not be a card-carrying member of any political party,” Gaya noted.
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