On Friday morning, the National Assembly is heavily guarded, particularly around the House of Representatives chambers.
The House is currently questioning top officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Nigerian Communications Commission, who are speaking in plenary, about the possibility of electronically sending election results from across the country.
The Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill was stuck in the House on Thursday, requiring the parliament to resume debate on its sections today.
The National Assembly does not meet on Friday, and the House was supposed to begin its two-month annual recess on Thursday, but the development has changed that.
The Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, was forced to postpone plenary until Friday, when Prof Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, and Prof Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission, will brief the chamber on the implications of election results being transmitted electronically.
The House spent almost two hours on clause 52(2) of the bill after the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, who presided over the Committee of the Whole to evaluate the bill’s sections, overruled repeated attempts to change it.
The section provoked a schism in the House, with MPs polarized along regional lines, resulting in several hours of rowdiness in the chamber, during which some lawmakers participated in shouting bouts.
