Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, in the company of other notable senators — held a press conference today where they directly addressed reports that the Senate had rejected electronic transmission of election results and retained the 2023 Electoral Act. He appears to contradict the explanation given by the Senate President Godswill Akpabio yesterday.
According to Senator Abaribe, the Senate’s Electoral Committee agreed on electronic transmission of results, not “transfer of results” as was the case with the 2022 electoral act.
Here is the full transcript of his speech:
We felt, those of us who are still around, that it would be necessary to make a clarification of what happened yesterday, to put the records straight. Yesterday, the Senate did not, I repeat, did not pass transfer of results, which was in the 2022 act. What we passed, and which the Senate president himself, when he was doing a clarification, sitting on his chair, is transmission of results. And I need to make this very clear.
Every one of us who is a senator, who has the privilege to represent a senatorial district, came here under the trust of their senatorial zone. And the reason for us to go into a closed session was so that we can tidy up all the niggling things inside there. And when we now come back to plenary to pass it, that we will pass it without any rancor.
I can assure you on my honor and the honor of all of us who are standing here that both the Electoral Committee of the Senate then the Ad Hoc Committee of the Senate, and also in the executive session that we had, that we all agreed on section 63, which is Electronic transmission of votes.
Electronic transmission of results. Transmit, not transfer. What is in 2022 is transfer. And we don’t want a law. that is vague. We don’t want a law that will be misinterpreted by anybody. We want a law that is clear, concise, and can be interpreted by all and that is unambiguous. So it is electronic transmission of results. Thank you.
