By Haruna Salami
President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to assent to the new Electoral Act Amendment Bill as legacy of his government for Nigerians.
Honourable Dumnamene Dekor, representing Khana/Gokana Federal Constituency, Rivers state made this call Monday while speaking with some journalists at the National Assembly.
According to him, “the country has about 371 days to hold an election. The election is supposed to be proclaimed and up till this moment, technically about 11 days from now and Mr. President has not given his assent. We hope he does because by 18th of this month, it will be a bit worrisome”.
He said most of the talk about “people being fraudulently elected, the kind of crisis we have in our electoral system, the militarisation of elections will come to an end with a better electoral system.
“That way it will be easy if I’m not popular and I have used whatever means to come here, you will discover that the provisions of the Act, if election results are transmitted electronically from the polling unit, it will remove a lot of fraud, killings from our electoral system and it will also make our elections cheaper on the long run in terms of manpower because you have to recruit so many men.
In addition, the risk corps members and all those involved in the electoral process face will be reduced, he said.“All these people running to Central Bank of Nigeria where the electoral materials are kept for safety, monitoring all the processes, because the issue of trust does not exist within the system, most of these things will be taken away if the bill is assented to.
He said President Buhari can do Nigerians and Nigeria a lot of good by giving his assent. “The reason is simple, if I think I’m strong and I have my people who are willing that I should represent them, there might be a woman who is out there selling pepper, but also has the minimum qualification to run for election into the National Assembly, she can put herself forward up for election knowing that there is going to be one man one vote and that the vote of the people will count and she is not going to be shortchanged.
“That way she will go and run election against me and because she is popular and accepted by the people, she will be elected.
“The issue of so much money in politics, thuggery and all that will be reduced to the very minimum and, of course in tune with modern trend all over the world and it will work for us.
“All this story of we don’t have network here and there and they are doing ‘trademoni’ all over the place, we are doing electronic banking in this country, why will that of electronic transmission of results be different?
He believes the APC government will do Nigerians a favour by ushering in a better Electoral Act that will define the process of electing people into various offices.
