By Haruna Salami
The sharp division among the senators over electronic transmission of results by INEC in the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill has been resolved through individual votes by the senators present at plenary Thursday.
The resort to “division”, where each lawmaker cast his/her vote openly as opposed to voice vote, which is subject to whims and caprices of the presiding officer was as a result of invocation of Senate Standing Order 73 by the Senate Minority Leader, Enyinaya Abaribe.
On the whole, there are 109 senators, but 80 were present to cast their votes on the contentious clause of electronic transmission of election results by INEC.
Result of votes showed that 28 said “Yes” to electronic voting and transmission of election results we while 52 said “No” to it, with 28 members absent.
Many had hoped that the lawmakers would support electronic transfer of election results. NEWSDIARYONLINE reports that voting took party lines.
The most shocking U-Turn in the whole saga was seen when the Chairman of INEC, Kabiru Gaya voted against the recommendation of his committee which he signed.
Senate then continued consideration of the report.
