The floor of the Senate on Tuesday again witnessed a rowdy session following a disagreement over the ongoing collations of the presidential election results by the Independent National Electrical Commission (INEC) in Abuja.
While Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, stated that the Electoral Act has no provision for electronic transmission of results, the lawmakers, after a heated argument, however, called on Nigerians to remain calm just as it urges INEC to abide by extant laws in collation of results of the presidential election.
Lawan said this while contributing to the motion sponsored by Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, representing Kwara Central Senatorial District on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on the controversies trailing the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
According to him, what was passed by the National Assembly was snapping of election results and transferring them to the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
INEC will now scan or snap the result sheets and transfer them. We urge INEC to follow the Electoral Act and other laws on their guidelines.
“In this Chamber, we are not going to interpret the Electoral Act. This is not a Court of Law. We are just to guide this debate and talk about the general principles of how this election and declaration should be done. There is no need to stress ourselves.
“What we are doing is to urge INEC to follow the law and the citizens should be calm.”
The heated debate was triggered by a motion moved by Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe (APC Kwara Central), on the need to call for calm and appeal to political parties, stakeholders and Nigerians to abide by the rule of law on the election process in the just concluded election.
While senators belonging to the ruling All Progressives Congress ( APC), supported debate on the motion, those in the opposition, kicked against it.
Oloriegbe who moved the motion anchored on Orders 41 and 51, said it was very important for the highest legislative body to look into the controversy surrounding the results collation by INEC and bring calm to the raging storm among political parties.
He, however, urged all political actors, leaders and Nigerians to remain calm and allow the collation and announcement of Presidential and National Assembly elections to proceed, based on provisions of the Electoral Act to
Sen.Sani Musa(APC-Niger) said: “It is very clear that accreditation and verification are to be done by the BVAS.
“We are not voting electronically for that real-time transmission to happen, transmission can only happen after it has been published on BVAS.
“So it is not real-time, we are not a court to interpret but INEC has a responsibility to stick to guidelines.
“It is a simple process and that process after publishing, they send it to back-end servers and it is after then that INEC can put it on IREV.
“INEC has been attacked over 160 times and nobody has been making any issue about that.”
Sen. Opeyemi Bamidele (APC-Ekiti) urged INEC to do the right thing based on the Electoral Act.
He urged Nigerians to be patient for INEC to complete the process while calling on the judiciary to do the right thing.
He said that the judiciary should not allow itself to be dragged into interfering with the elections without passing through the proper process.
The Senate President Ahmad Lawan while contributing to the motion sponsored by Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe, representing Kwara Central Senatorial District on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on the controversies trailing the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The Senate in its final resolution urged all political actors, leaders and Nigerians to remain calm and allow the collation and announcement of Presidential and National Assembly elections to proceed, based on provisions of the Electoral Act.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then