Controversy over INEC election results collation induces rowdy Session at Senate

*Lawan insists, NASS did not pass electronics transmission in Electoral Act

The controversy over electronics transmission of results in the just conducted Presidential and National Assembly election last Saturday has induced a rowdy session at Senateplenary on Tuesday.

The Senator representing Kwara Central, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, citing Orders 41 and 51 presented a motion 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.

He was supported by other senators in the All Progressives Congress, who stated that it was very expedient and instructive for the highest legislative body to be involved to bring calm to the raging storm among political parties.

Oloriegbe, however, urged all political actors, leaders and every Nigerian to remain calm and allow collation and announcement of the presidential and National Assembly elections to proceed based on the provisions of the Electoral Act.

In his submission, Sani Musa, 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.”
According to him, INEC has been attacked over 160 times and nobody has been making any issue about that.

Opeyemi Bamidele asked INEC to do the right thing based on the Electoral Act. He said Nigerians should be patient for INEC to complete the process while also calling on the judiciary to do the right thing.
He noted that the judiciary should not allow itself to be dragged into interfering with the elections without passing through the proper process.

However, when Senator Betty Apiafi said it was wrong to bring up the issues at such a critical time like this adding that particularly it wasn’t in their place to state what the guidelines of the INEC should be the chamber became rowdy

Whike the ruling party senators wanted the motion and the prayers to be heard, the opposition senators disagreed with the motion.

Senator Orker-Jev also added, “The best way is to step down this order because if we are already generating this kind of controversy, imagine what will happen out there.”

Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa also noted that the Senate should stay clear of the issues due to the controversy ongoing on the results.

He said, “Whatever happens in the collation centre and in the social media, the Senate should not involve in it.
The Senate President Ahmad Lawan explained that in the electoral act they passed, there was nothing like electronics transmission.

According to him, Electronics transmission is when votes are transmitted to the server.
“What we have passed I read through it when it was a bill several times, is to transfer after all the paper work that we normally do are done.
“The agents and everybody there including security will have the papers. INEC will snap or scan the result sheet and transfer and that is what is captured with BVAS as the results.
“For me my understanding is if any result that is captured and sent differs from something gotten somewhere, that one is illegal.

“It is Only the court that can determine that it is not us here. So we urge INEC to follow the provisions of the electoral act.