...Reps Remove Immunity For President, Governors
Nigerians’ well-expressed frustration with spending
trillions of Naira annually to run barely functional, but supposedly hi-tech
institutions, appeared to manifest full-scale Wednesday after top government
satellite body, NIGCOMSAT, failed for days to install a
functional electronic platform for lawmakers voting on the constitution.
The multi-million Naira project flopped first on Tuesday,
forcing a reschedule of the constitution amendment vote at the House of
Representatives, and finally on Wednesday, plunging the chamber into a
laborious manual voting that ended shortly before 11p.m.
How the Nigerian Communication Satellite body, an office
expected to deal with utilising Nigeria’s satellite functions on broadband
internet, tele-education and medicine, marine communication, and navigation
services, got into a contract for a direct electronic voting machine
installation is not clear.
Amid claims the contract was awarded for several millions of
Naira, the House of Representatives denied it paid for the job. A spokesperson
said the office only offered to help with the process after it was realised the
routine system was faulty.
That would seem unlikely as the House does not officially
accept favours from agencies it oversees. Even so, as an assistance, the funds
for the project would likely have been drawn by NIGCOMSAT from the public
purse.
We could not verify
the exact details of the project, as officials and lawmakers would not say.
What was clear however, was each of the 360 members received
a new computer tablet and several new routers were purchased for the failed
exercise.
At an average N100, 000 per tablet, that would amount to at
least N36 million, exclusive of other spending such as the internet routers and
logistics.
Indication of a malfunction emerged Tuesday after members
met for unusually long hours behind closed doors as they apparently waited to
deal with the wobbling infrastructure. It is not also clear why the technical
handlers of the machine, expected to be the same used by the Senate for their
vote last week, were not called up.
As the lawmakers opened finally for business on Tuesday, it
turned out it was NIGCOMSAT that was in charge of setting up an improvised
system for the voting.
The Director General of the Agency, Ahmed Rufai, apologised
to the lawmakers on Tuesday after it failed to go through, urging patience and
assuring the service will be functional by Wednesday.
Mr. Rufai said technicians were to work round the night to fix
the problem, and counselled members to fully charge their new tablets for the
next day.
But the delay continued on Wednesday, and for hours voting
failed to start, again drawing apologies from the DG, and a dim pledge to “give
up” if the last try failed.
Indeed, that attempt failed forcing the House to commence
manual voting that required each member to mark their preferences to 85
clauses, signed them while collation followed.
Collation ended minutes before 11 p.m. Wednesday.
Results
The Reps approved all 85 clauses, removing the immunity on
criminal charges against the president and governors, and autonomy for local
governments.
The House also approved the separation of the offices of the
Attorneys General and those of the Minister or Commissioner of Justice. Those
recommendations had earlier been rejected by the Senate.
The House also retained labour in the exclusive list of the
federal government, a decision that intends to give the federal government the
exclusive right over National Minimum Wage.
The House did not vote on the contentious Section 29(4)(b)
dealing with marriage and renunciation of citizenship as its committee made no
recommendation on the matter. A decision on that section by the Senate last
week, sparked outrage.
Still, the relatively more impressive outcome from the
House, are far from becoming laws as they will need to be agreed upon by the
Senate and States Houses of Assembly.
Both chambers are to meet and agree on their final voting
results, and the harmonised copy will be transmitted to the state legislatures.
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