#NigeriaDecides2023: Senate In Rowdy Session Over Collation Process

The Senate had a rowdy session as the senators resumed sitting on Tuesday for the first time after Saturday’s general elections.

The Senate sitting became contentious over the collation of the 2023 presidential and national assembly election results.

A motion on the need to urge restraint and for political parties, stakeholders, and Nigerians to uphold the rule of law in the recently concluded election was submitted by Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe of Kwara Central, who cited Orders 41 and 51.

He was joined in his motion by several senators from the All Progressives Congress who argued that the top legislative body needed to get involved in soothing the raging political storm across the country.

To maintain peace while allowing the collation and announcement of the results of the presidential and National Assembly elections to continue in line with the Electoral Act, Oloriegbe asked all political actors, leaders, and every Nigerian to be calm.

While Senator Sani Musa said, “It is very clear that accreditation and verification are to be done by the BVAS. We are not voting electronically for that real-time transmission to happen. Transmission can only happen after it has been published on BVAS. So it is not real-time. We are not a court to interpret but INEC has a responsibility to stick to guidelines.

“It is a simple process and that process after publishing, they send it to back-end servers and it is after then that INEC can put it on IREV. INEC has been attacked over 160 times and nobody has been making any issue about that.”

While Senator Opeyemi Bamidele asks INEC to follow the Election Act and do the right thing. He urged the judiciary to act properly and advised Nigerians to wait patiently for INEC to finish the process. He said that the judiciary shouldn’t let itself be pressured into meddling in the elections without following the correct procedures.

The opposition senators opposed Oloriegbe’s motion, while the senators from the APC wanted the motion to be heard.

In his comment, the senate president insisted that anyone who is not satisfied with the verdict of INEC should go to court, adding that the Senate was not a courtroom.

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.”

He added, “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.”