Some senators had a tough time grasping the
techniques of electronic voting used during the consideration of amendments to the 1999 constitution.
The committee on the review of the constitution led by Ike
Ekweremadu, deputy senate president, had laid the report on Tuesday and
the senate commenced debate on it by Wednesday.
Out of 109 lawmakers, only 95 were present to vote.
As against the traditional voice voting, the lawmakers used the
electronic voting method to approve or reject the amendments, which were broken
down into 32 bills.
Even after Senate President Bukola Saraki spent 25 minutes putting
his colleagues through, some senators still found it difficult to use the
device, leading to a delay in the process.
“For every single bill, the first thing to do is to register
before voting,” the senate president said.
But after slotting in their cards, some of the senators failed to
register before voting and this disrupted the process.
When it appeared as if the senate president got fed up with
teaching adults, he started calling out the names of the lawmakers who appeared
not to understand the process.
At the mention of a lawmaker’s name, the chamber would erupt in
laughter.
Some of the senators mentioned by Saraki were Stella Oduah,
senator representing Anambra north; Atai Usman, representative of Kogi central
and Ibrahim Abdullahi, from Sokoto south.
The senators managed to use the electronic voting until the
end but not without Saraki’s guidance.
Although electronic voting is in the 8th assembly’s
legislative agenda, it has only been used once. That was during the
confirmation of Ejembi Eko (Benue) and Amina Augie (Kebbi) – both nominees for
justices of the supreme court.
The house of representatives is expected to use electronic voting
on the constitution amendment on Thursday, and that would be the first time of
it being used since it was inaugurated in 2015.
More drama is likely to unfold at the lower legislative chamber.
- The Cable
No comments:
Post a Comment