Senate in rowdy session over election result collation

The Senate was thrown into a rowdy session on Tuesday as members deliberated on the shoddy manner the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has conducted the collation of the results of Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly 2023 election.

The commotion was raised when a motion raised by the Senator representing the Kwara Central, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, citing Orders 41 and 51, was presented on the need for calm with an appeal to political parties, stakeholders and Nigerians to abide by the rule of law on the election process in the just concluded election.

Oloriegbe urged all political actors, leaders and every Nigerian to remain calm and allow collation and announcement of the election results to proceed based on the provisions of the Electoral Act.

Oloriegbe’s motion which was backed by other senators in the All Progressives Congress, however, caused a near fracas as senators in other parties kicked against it.

But in a counter motion, the Senator Betty Apiafi said it was wrong to bring up the issues at a critical time like this, as the Senate was not the place to state what the guidelines of the INEC should be.

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While the All Progressives senators wanted the motion and the prayers to be heard, the opposition senators disagreed with the motion, leading to hot exchanges of words.

While stepping down the matter, Senate President Ahmad Lawan said:

“In the Electoral Act that we passed, there is nothing like the electoral transmission. What we have passed is to transfer after all the paper works that we normally do while the agents and everybody there have the papers.

“INEC will now scan or snap the result sheets and transfer them. We urge INEC to follow the Electoral Act and other laws on their guidelines.

“In this Chamber, we are not going to interpret the Electoral Act. This is not a Court of Law. We are just to guide this debate and talk about the general principles of how this election and declaration should be done. There is no need to stress ourselves.

“What we are doing is to urge INEC to follow the law and the citizens should be calm,” he said, adding that anyone who is not satisfied with the verdict of INEC should go to court.

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