The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon.
Yakubu Dogara, has assured Nigerians that members and leadership of the lower
chamber of the National Assembly are committed to ensuring the quick passage of
the Electoral Act and the budget of the Independent National Electoral
Commission(INEC).
Dogara, who spoke with journalists immediately
after today’s plenary was adjourned till Wednesday at the National Assembly
complex, said contrary to insinuation in some quarters, the lawmakers are
committed to whatever will guarantee credible elections in Nigeria.
He said: “We are servants of the people by our
calling as representatives of the people of Nigeria and we don’t have the right
to put our interest forward rather than the interest of the people, so we are
here to serve the public good. And these issues are outstanding, we know. It
was never going to be threat in anyway as insinuated. We showed that we have in
the budget, the provision for service wide vote, which is about N300billion,
and any emergency could have been met from the service wide vote we have
allocated in the budget.”
The Speaker assured Nigerians that “as we are back
now, we will set ourselves to accomplishing whatever is there in the interest
of our people. We have done that in the area of Ease of Doing Business. There
were times, even within a week that we concluded the first, second and third
reading of a bill and passed it into law just because we felt there was need
for us to expand the space for participation of citizens, job creation, wealth
creation and in rebuilding our economy, especially in the wake of economic
recession.
“So, nothing is impossible and I can assure you
that as soon as we have the report brought from the committee, hopefully within
the week, in no time, we should be able to deal with these issues relating to
the elections; whether it is Electoral Act, whether it is funding for INEC. We
will ensure that the appropriate funding is approved for INEC and that the
electoral act is passed promptly, even if it involves doing it within a day.
“We are committed to doing it because the only
thing that guarantees democracy is free, fair, transparent and credible
elections and we will not joke with it as politicians.
“We are committed to passing them or dealing with
them in no time to ensure we have a very credible and fair election in 2019.”
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