Constitution Review: Reps insist on electronic votingtoday

INDICATIONS emerged, yesterday, that the House of Representatives
would vote via electronic device today to determine the various
clauses in the Constitution Review Report considered by members last
Thursday.
Also, feelers from Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, point to the fact
that its lawmakers may massively vote against local government
autonomy.
A source who confided in Vanguard, said: "ACN lawmakers from day one
had insisted that it is true federalism they would stand by, not any
local government autonomy that would rubbish them at the end of the
day. Just imagine their line of argument and they call themselves
progressives before all Nigerians when actually they are
conservatives."
Further investigations into the issue revealed that the House
leadership, apparently sensing danger, decided to use the electronic
voting device which would indicate the manner individual lawmaker
voted.
It was also gathered that the House would indicate how the
constituency of individual legislators voted during the Peoples Public
Sessions held in allthe 360 constituencies.
Legislators on the other hand, are expected to follow the dictates of
their constituents as enumerated during the Peoples Public Sessions
held acrossthe country.
Another source also told Vanguard that the House leadership must have
sensed that if the voting process was not transparently conducted, it
might rubbish all the efforts of the seventh Assembly towards having a
credible review of 1999 constitution as amended.
Last Thursday, members of the House sat from 1.00pm till 6.30pm to
consider clause by clause the ad-hoc Constitution Review Committee
Report laid on July 4 by the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, who
headed the committee.
When the Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, was contacted on the
position of his party, he simply said "we will do what will be good
for Nigeria.