PRESIDENT of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan has constituted a seven man conference committee on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
Members of the committee are to work with their counterpart in the House of Representatives to harmonize the position of both chambers on the bill and produce a common draft of the legislation.
The committee is headed by the Senate Leader, Abdullahi Yahaya and has representatives from the six geo-political zones of the country.
Members of the committee are: Senator Kabir Gaya (North west) Ajibola Bashir (South west) Senator Danjuma Goje (North west) Senator Uche Ekwunife (South east) and Senator Mathew Urhogihide (South South) .
It would be recalled that the Senate two (2) months ago passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021 during which it made a controversial alteration to section 52(3) deleting the discretionary powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deploy electronic transmission of all elections.
The bill had earlier prescribed that INEC may adopt electronic voting and transmission of results or any other method of voting in any election it conducts as may deem fit.
On the other hand, the parliament retained the-discretional powers given to INEC in the next extant law.
It is the discrepancy and several others that would be harmonized before a final draft of the bill before it will be transmitted to the president for his assent.
