Senator representing Ekiti Central and Chairman Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele has justified why he and other senators of the ruling All Progressives Congress voted in support of an amendment to the provisions for electronic voting in the Independent National Electoral Commission on the Electoral Act 2016 ( Amendment) Bill, 2021 passed on Thursday.
Incidentally, the duo of Senator Bamidele and Kabiru Gaya are members of the Senate Committee on INEC which recommended electronic voting. They however voted in support of the amendment proposed by Senator representing Niger North, Sabi Abdullahi as against the retention of the original draft as proposed by Senator Albert Bassey Akpan.
The original draft in Section 52(3) on electronic transmission of results.
The section reads: “The Commission may transmit results of elections by electronic means where and when practicable.”
The amendment proposed by Senator Abdullahi which was passed after physical voting by lawmakers gave a proviso: that the national telecommunication regulatory agency, the Nigeria Communications Commission, (NCC) should determine when electronic transmission be deployed, subject to the approval of the National Assembly.
It reads:” The Commission may consider the electronic transmission of results provided the national network coverage is adjudged to be adequate and secured by the National Communications Commission.”
Senator Bamidele in a statement he personally signed maintained that those who voted No in support of the amendment as proposed by Senator Abdullahi submitted surrendered themselves to superior logic.
Senator Opeyemi who is the Chairman of the Southern Senators Forum further noted that his vote for amendment should not be misconstrued as a rejection of electronic voting.
He said:” The Distinguished Senator representing Niger East Senatorial District, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, expressed concern that the words ‘electronic transmission of results where and when practicable’, as used in our report, was rather nebulous and could lead to arbitrary intervention and implementation.
“He also opined that the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), being the regulatory institution in charge of communication infrastructure across the country, should be made to work with INEC in determining the “where and when practicable” desire in our report to ensure that Voters in rural communities without access to communication network are not disenfranchised or the results of their elections compromised, relying on a report that only about 43 per cent of the Nigerian rural communities so far have access to communication network service.
“This was the issue before the Senate. While every Senator present and voting was in support of the electronic transmission of election results (which is a good development for Nigeria), there was a division between the two versions of the draft.
Distinguished Senator Albert Akpan, representing Akwa Ibom Central Senatorial District, had proposed that the Senate should stick to the recommendation as originally proposed by our sub-committee, as a counter-proposal to the amendment sponsored by Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi. So, the Senate became divided between those who voted ”YES’ to electronic transmission of results “where and when practicable” and those who voted ‘NO’ to what they described as the nebulous version in support of an amendment they believed would ensure that INEC was guided by data and scientific realities.
The voting and subsequent division were not about making a choice between supporting or rejecting electronic transmission of election results because we all agreed to it.”
He further accused the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party of trying to make political capital of the voting pattern which was overwhelmingly in support of the amendment.