Dare Babalola
Senator Orji Kalu says the National Assembly committee on Electoral Act harmonisation will meet today to finalise its decision on the bill, citing feedback from Nigerians.
Kalu, a former governor of Abia State, stated this in a Channels TV Sunrise Daily interview on Tuesday.
“Regarding the feedback from Nigerians about the Electoral Act amendment, I can tell you it is on track. We had an emergency sitting last week, and we are having another one today. We were originally supposed to resume on the 24th, possibly for budget hearings, but we have paused them to focus on the Electoral Committee,” the Abia North lawmaker said.
“I am a member of the Joint Harmonisation Committee. I was in the office from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. When it was suggested we go to the Senate President’s house to harmonise our decision, I declined because I needed to eat and rest after a long day at the National Assembly. The harmonisation process has officially started, and you will hear from us soon.”
The comments come more than a week after the Senate appointed a 12-member committee to work with the House of Representatives on harmonising the Electoral Act.
The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, announced the members during an emergency plenary session last Tuesday.
The move follows the controversy that erupted over lawmakers’ adoption of a flexible model for the transmission of election results, citing technical challenges with network coverage.
The Senate approved electronic transmission of results but omitted the “real-time” in Clause 60(3) of the amended Electoral Act, making manual collation the backup option in case of technological failures.
This differs from the House, which approved the “real-time” upload of results from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission Result Viewing portal.
