Senate summons Jega over rescheduled elections

THE Senate has summoned the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, on his state of preparedness for the elections rescheduled for March 28 and April 11 respectively. Jega is expected at the Senate by 11am Wednesday.

  The Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, in a motion that was supported by the Minority Leaded, George Akume, had urged his colleagues to invite Jega to  brief the chamber on INEC’s readiness to conduct elections.

  Additional prayer by Akume to also invite security chiefs to explain their position in electoral matters as well as their efforts at forestalling security hitches during the polls was countered by the Senate President.

 In the motion, Ndoma-Egba stated: “That the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had earlier fixed February 14, 2015 for the presidential election and the 28th of February for the governorship and state house of assembly elections.

 “That on Sunday, February 8, 2015, INEC announced a postponement and rescheduling of the elections to March 28, 2015 for the Presidential  elections and National Assembly elections and April 11, 2015, for the governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections respectively.

 “That apart from the security reports cited by the Commission for the postponement of the elections, critical issues as the distribution of the Permanent Voter Cards and the palpable apprehension that considerable number of eligible voters maybe be disenfranchised and that the proposed deployment of card readers by INEC for the conduct of the elections may amount to a contravention of Section 52 of the Electoral Act 2010 and that if these issues are not resolved before hand, the conduct of the elections may cause more complications.

 “I therefore move that this distinguished Senate do invite the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission to brief this distinguished Senate at plenary on the issues and various other issues related to her preparedness for the conduct of the 2015 elections and that secondly, the Commission be made to demonstrate the workings of the card reader and its deployment before this distinguished Senate.”