A former governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Henry Seriake Dickson, has spoken on the ongoing Electoral Act amendment debacle, with a clear position that the version of the amendment passed by the House of Representatives will serve the interest of Nigerians and the nation’s democracy better.
Dickson who represents Bayelsa West Senatorial District in the senate spoke on an Arise News interview programme, Prime Time, on Tuesday night, but monitored by TNN.
Dickson lamented the approach adopted by the senate during the amendment, saying that he would have stood his grounds to oppose some of the unpopular introductions to the Act, if he was sure of the numbers.
The outspoken senator who has earned the confidence of many Nigerians because of his consistent stance on national issues on the floor of the senate said he wished he had been selected as member of the committee that would harmonise the two versions of the amended Act.
On Tuesday, the senate president, Senator Godswill Akpabio, appointed three more senators to bring the number senators in the joint harmonization committee to 12. The committee is expected to sit with their House of Representatives counterparts, also 12, to agree on the final copy of the amendment, before presentation to the president for assent.
Dickson said “if I were on that committee, I would vote for the House version. Electoral robbery is usually done at collation centres, not at polling units. Once results are transmitted immediately from the unit, it becomes much harder to manipulate them later.”
Whereas the Houe of Representatives agreed that results shall be transmitted electronically, in real time, the senate, in accepting the that results shall be transmitted electronically, did not include real time transmission, as demanded by most Nigerians.
Besides, the senate also added a proviso, that manual approach can be adopted in the event of network challenges, an idea that has attracted the condemnation of most Nigerians who believe that politicians could take advantage of the proviso to perpetuate electoral fraud.
“I do not personally agree with that proviso. But as an opposition member, you must sometimes accept incremental progress when you do not have the numbers.”
