Electoral Act Amendment: Harmonisation Committee Was Not Allowed To Function – Hon Ogene

THE member representing Ogbaru Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Afam Victor Ogene, has disclosed that the harmonisation committee which was supposed to reconcile the positions of Senate and House of Representatives on the Election Amendment Bill was not allowed to function.
Ogene said party politics was responsible for the change in the position earlier taken by the House which was considered progressive.

The Labour Party lawmaker, in an interview on Channel TV’s Sunrise Daily, said as far as he knows the committee didn’t come up with any report.
He said “The harmonisation committee was not allowed to function,” adding “as far as I know the committee didn’t come up with any report.”

The leader of the Labour Party Caucus in the House, said their members in the harmonisation committee were supposed to push through the clauses but that never happened.
He cited an absurdity in the parliamentary process as no fresh amendments were supposed to be made to what was handed over to the harmonisation committee, adding that the practice was to adopt the version passed by the House or the Senate.

“What we saw was a tinkered report, different from the Senate and House. It was amended out of plenary.”
He cited that contrary to what was passed on the mode of party primaries, the provision for indirect primaries was removed while direct primaries and consensus options were adopted.
He said “Political parties were denied the right to determine how they choose their candidates.”
Reflecting on the outcome of events in the House on Tuesday, the lawmaker said it was unfortunate that the lower chamber which had been praised for being progressive in its adoption of real-time electronic transmission, said the first sign of trouble was when they were not given clean copies before the amendment process began despite promises by the speaker during the executive session.

The lawmaker further lamented that the deputy speaker carried on the process in a manner that was not parliamentary which prompted the protests by opposition lawmakers.
“In three minutes we were at clause 60. The amendment was not read clause by clause.”
He however noted that after protests by opposition lawmakers, they moved to make an amendment to clause 60 sub 3 to make the transmitted copies to have the force of law.
“But it failed because APC had a majority voice,” he said.

He defended their decision to stage a walk out because they didn’t want to be part of the process anymore which had become a ruling party affair.
He however added that while many APC wanted to do the right thing, “No member of the APC would want to be caught going against the party’s position.”

End.