Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara has said
that the legislature is committed to free, fair and credible elections
in 2019.
He said this during a meeting of the leadership of both chambers of
the National Assembly with the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu
The Speaker, who acknowledged gains recorded during the last election
cycle in 2015, urged the electoral umpire to ensure that standards are
improved upon.
“I want to reiterate that we are committed to an electoral process
that will better our experiences of our 2015 general elections.
“We’ve already set a standard where the world has avowed our
electoral process to be fair to a certain degree and we must not go
below that standard.”
He pledged the commitment of the National Assembly to enabling INEC achieve this goal through appropriation.
The Speaker further expressed concerns about what he described an emergency approach being taken towards the 2019 elections.
“As leaders of the National Assembly, we are committed to
appropriating whatever is needed within the confines of the resources of
the nation for INEC to be able to actualise this and that is why this
meeting is important.
“However, personally, I have some questions that I intend to raise,
but I will raise these in the process of discussion because it appears
that we are treating this 2019 election as an emergency, which it ought
not to be, so that is just my concern.”
The INEC chairman Professor Yakubu, on his part, thanked the leadership of the National Assembly for their continued support.
“Let me, on behalf of the commission, thank your excellencies and the leadership of the National Assembly for this meeting.
“We are now reenergised and more reassured that our plans for the
2019 general elections are absolutely on course as far as funding is
concerned.”
He, however, stressed the need to act quickly, especially as elections are “exactly a hundred and ninety-one days away”.
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