Founder, School of Politics, Policy and Governance, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, has called on the Senate and the House of Representatives to avoid policies and actions that undermine the intention for their election by their constituents.
In a statement, the former Vice President of the World Bank warned the federal legislators not to play with fire in their line of duty.
According to her, the wisest advice that the Senate, as well as the House of Representatives, can receive from all well-meaning citizens is to know when to stop playing with fire.
“Nigerians mostly see the Senate as an ignoble and withering institution that delights in deliberate betrayal of public trust. Our lawmakers at large are well known for consistently prioritising personal and partisan interests over constituent welfare: blocking or watering down reform legislation (electoral reform, anti-corruption measures, constitutional amendments for devolution of power); their selfish custom of inflated budgetary allocations for the legislature while public services collapse; a pattern of confirming clearly unfit nominees for executive positions in exchange for political favours; and several other perfidious actions at the public expense,” she said.
Ezekwesili cited the Senate’s recent vote against a proposed amendment to make electronic transmission of election results mandatory in the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill and tried to deceive Nigerians by claiming that it “did not reject electronic transmission.”
Describing the Senate’s denial as disingenuous, she said, “Let us dispense with euphemisms and doublespeak. What the Senators did in that opaque Closed Plenary Session yesterday was retain the critical clause – Section 60 of the Electoral Act 2022, specifically subsection (5) with the current wording, ‘the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the Commission’.”
For the two-time minister, by deliberately retaining the vague language that leaves the method and timing of transmitting election results to the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission, rather than requiring real-time uploads from polling units, the Senate has once again weaponised ambiguity in our electoral law.
“The brazen actions of the senators were neither an innocent choice nor some sort of technical oversight. It was also not a neutral legislative compromise of ‘letting sleeping dogs lie,’ because there must surely be a few of them who know better, as they are daily in touch with our public reality and the extremely angry mood of the majority of impoverished citizens who are exhausted by corruption and bad governance.
“Calling a spade a spade, as I am wont to do, the senators took a calculated decision despite their full knowledge of recent history. No reasonable Nigerian is fooled by the shenanigans of the Senate. Every Nigerian who paid attention to the 2023 general elections knows that the exact clause the Senate deliberately reaffirmed yesterday is the same discretionary loophole that was at the centre of the crisis that terribly eroded public trust and fatally damaged the integrity of our democracy,” she stated.
Real-time electronic transmission from polling units, she pointed out, was promised in practice but not enforced in law.
“When it failed, Nigerians were told to accept ‘procedural explanations’ instead of verifiable outcomes,” she said. “It was that same clause retained by the Senate at its sitting that created a gap between what Nigerians were repeatedly reassured would happen in the 2023 elections and the fiasco that the law permitted INEC to actually carry out in betrayal of public trust. It was that clause that offered a badly compromised judiciary the opportunity to pronounce a judgment which created confusion, distrust, national tension, and delegitimised the government that was sworn into office.”
That gap, she noted, nearly pushed the country into turmoil.
The statement reads, “For the Senate to now deliberately preserve the same ambiguity, after witnessing its consequences, is an act of grave irresponsibility. When lawmakers reject clear, enforceable safeguards and instead cling to ambiguity, they are not protecting institutions; they are protecting a predetermined outcome.
“Adding salt to injury, the Senate’s statement that ‘we did not reject electronic transmission’ while refusing to make it mandatory is political sleight of hand. Electronic transmission that is optional, discretionary and unenforceable is no safeguard at all against the systemic electoral fraud that has plagued our country with a long history of electoral manipulation and weak institutional trust.”
Certain that the senators must have heard the unified stance of Nigerians on electronic transmission of results since the news of their unpopular decision was published, she urged them to avoid plunging the country into crisis.
To remedy the situation, she called on the senators to cancel the emergency two-week break the red chamber had announced and return to the National Assembly complex, and in a broadcast plenary session, unanimously pass into law the exact text of the reform proposed to the clause on electronic transmission of results.
She said, “For avoidance of any confusion, here is the exact text of the key proposed provision from the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill: ‘The presiding officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the INEC Result Viewing Portal in real time, and such transmission shall be done after the prescribed Form EC8A has been signed and stamped by the presiding officer and, where available, countersigned by candidates or polling unit agents.”
