The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the National Assembly has endorsed and adopted the resolutions of southern governors on the establishment of state police, electoral reform and five per cent oil equity share for host communities.
They also described the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government as a failure.
The governors had on Monday in Lagos rejected moves to alter the Electoral Act to remove electronic transmission of results and the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) with three per cent share of oil revenue for host communities.
The PDP lawmakers, led by Senate and House Minority Leaders, Enyinnaya Abaribe and Ndudi Elumelu, at a joint press briefing, yesterday, commended the bold steps of the governors for taking a common position on national issues despite their party differences.
They described as “unpatriotic and mischievous” alleged attempt to tamper with a critical component of the electoral bill and subvert democratic process, institutionalise rigging, bastardise and frustrate genuine efforts towards credible elections in the country.
“Electronic transmission of results is the only way to eliminate malpractice and manipulations associated with manual collation of results, including alteration, switching and disappearance of election materials while on transit to various collation centres,” Abaribe said.
He said the joint PDP caucus was already taking very strong and uncompromising steps to ensure that the provision guaranteeing the electronic transmission of result is not tampered with in any form whatsoever.
They also affirmed the demand by the governors that as chief security officers in the states, they must be duly informed before any security institution undertakes any operation in their states.
The joint PDP caucus also backed the demand by the governors that deductions from the Federation Account for the Nigeria Police Security Trust Fund should be distributed among the states and Federal Government to combat security challenges.
The caucus, Abaribe said, agreed with the position of the southern governors in rejecting the three per cent share of oil revenue to host communities as passed by the Senate, supporting instead the five per cent share as passed by the House of Representatives.
“As a joint caucus, we have set up very strong machinery to ensure that, in the interest of justice and fairness, the percentage of share of the oil revenue to the host community does not fall below expectation,” he added.
