Revealed: The ‘forged’ 8th Senate
voting rule
Tension is building up at the
National Assembly as the Nigeria Police Force gets set to make public the
report of its findings on the alleged forgery of Senate Standing Rules on the
election of principal officers.
Although the politician is yet to be
invited by the police in connection with the allegation, his supporters have
already raised the alarm that he was being witch-hunted and threatened to cause
trouble if any harm comes his way.
Vanguard’s investigation however showed that the uproar being
orchestrated by both Ekweremadu’s Peoples Democratic Party and his office, were
aimed at pre-empting the anticipated criminal charges likely to be pressed
against him by the security agencies over the alleged doctoring of the Senate’s
rules.
Sources close to both Ekweremadu and
that of the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, confirmed that the DSP
was never invited over any allegation regarding the altering of the Senate’s
rules.
A top police
officer confirmed that on Tuesday that the office of the IGP was
shocked over the furore being orchestrated by politicians in the media
regarding the purported move by the police to arrest and incriminate the DSP.
The officer, who works closely with
the IGP, but pleaded anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the
matter, made it clear that at no time did the police write any letter or intend
to write to summon Ekweremadu over the issue at stake.
When our correspondent raised the
issue of inviting the DSP by the IGP, the officer was upset, saying that no
such invitation had emanated from the NPF.
“I think the media is actually being
used to cause avoidable heat in the polity because the police did not and has
not invited any politician for interrogation.
A close ally of the Deputy Senate
President confessed that though no invitation had been extended by the police
to the politician, they needed to raise the alarm to prevent any threat to the
Senator, who retained his position by default in a controversial election last
month, to the chagrin of the ruling APC.
The Senate source said: “It is true
that the alarm raised by us and the PDP has helped to calm things down.
We needed to make the noise to prevent the DSP from being arrested,
investigated and harassed by the security agencies to please his opponents.
“As things are now, we are
monitoring to ensure that the DSP is not implicated in any way over the last
Senate election,” the source close to Ekweremadu, said.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the
police only wrote to the Clerk of the NASS asking for a convenient time and
place to discuss issues relating to the alleged forging of the standing rules
of the 8th Senate, a request which it claimed, was yet to be responded to by
the CNA.
But Vanguard discovered that at the centre
of the forgery is a slight difference between the voting procedures used in the
election of the principal officers of the Senate in 2011 and 2015.
Vanguard’s finding shows that while
the 2011 Standing Rules stipulated that the election of Senators should be done
by dividing the members and taking the votes, that of 2015 says that the
election should be done either through electronic voting or via secret ballot.
The 2011 standing rule which was
used for the 7th Senate says: “When only two Senators–elect are nominated and
seconded as President of Senate, the election shall be conducted as follows:
The Senate shall divide with the proposers and seconders as tellers.
(ii) Voting shall be conducted by
the Clerks-at-the-Table using the Division List of the Senate with the tellers
in attendance. The Clerk of the Senate shall submit the result of the division
to the Clerk of the National Assembly.
Strangely, the mode of voting was
however changed in respect of voting in 2015 causing ripples in the upper
legislative chambers.
Section 3(3) (e) of the 2015 Senate
Standing rule states: “When two or more Senators-elect are nominated and
seconded as Senate President, the election shall be conducted as follows: by
electronic voting; or voting by secret ballot which shall be conducted by the
Clerks-at-Table using the list of the Senators-elect of the Senate, who shall
each be given a ballot paper to cast his vote, with the proposers and seconder
as teller.
“The Clerk of the Senate shall
submit the result of the voting to the Clerk of the National Assembly who shall
then declare the Senator-elect who has received the highest number of votes ‘as
Senate President-elect.
The question begging for answers now
is: who changed the rules for 2015 election and who authorised it when the
Senators had vacated office before the election on June 9, 2015?
Source: Vanguard
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