23 Jul 2013

News: Constitution Review: Reps insist on electronic voting today

INDICATIONS emerged, yesterday, that the House of Representatives would vote via electronic device today to determine the various clauses in the Constitution Review Report considered by members last Thursday.


Also, feelers from Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, point to the fact that its lawmakers may massively vote against local government autonomy.

A source who confided in Vanguard, said: “ACN lawmakers from day one had insisted that it is true federalism they would stand by, not any local government autonomy that would rubbish them at the end of the day. Just imagine their line of argument and they call themselves progressives before all Nigerians when actually they are conservatives.”

Further investigations into the issue revealed that the House leadership, apparently sensing danger, decided to use the electronic voting device which would indicate the manner individual lawmaker voted.

It was also gathered that the House would indicate how the constituency of individual legislators voted during the Peoples Public Sessions held in all the 360 constituencies.

Legislators on the other hand, are expected to follow the dictates of their constituents as enumerated during the Peoples Public Sessions held across the country.

Another source also told Vanguard that the House leadership must have sensed that if the voting process was not transparently conducted, it might rubbish all the efforts of the seventh Assembly towards having a credible review of 1999 constitution as amended.

Last Thursday, members of the House sat from 1.00pm till 6.30pm to consider clause by clause the ad-hoc Constitution  Review Committee Report laid on July 4 by the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, who headed the committee.

When the Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, was contacted on the position of his party, he simply said “we will do what will be good for Nigeria.”

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