Elder Abraham Amah is the current Vice Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Abia state.
He is one Abia politician who airs his views on any subject matter without fear or favour to those that are involved. A pioneer Chairman of APP, and one time political adviser to former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu and the immediate past Governor Theodore Ahamefula Orji.
Elder Amah spoke to All Facts Newspaper Editor-in Chief, Chuks Isaiah on the recent imbroglio surrounding e-Voting and other political matters before jetting out to Abuja through Lagos, where he has gone to address matters of party design, Excerpt of the interview.
The Chief Whip, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu recently voted against the e-voting transmission of electoral results, giving reasons that his Igbere Village does not have network, is that the stand of the people of his constituency, because we happen to know that you are a member of his constituency, could his stand be the stand of other members of his constituency?
No, but I am from the same constituency with Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, he is my senator, representing me at the senate, but we were not aware of what he did, he did not do it on our behalf. What he was supposed to do and what every other senator was supposed to do was to engage the stakeholders of their various senatorial constituencies, and then make available a privileged copy of the draft so that we can look at it and make our contributions. We never had that opportunity to make such an input, it was never done. We always say that 1999 constitution was made by the military, but we forget that the military are also part and parcel of the citizens of our country. They are not strange people, they are not coming from the moon. If you think that the army did a constitution, and that constitution is faulty, the senators themselves is to engage in any constitution from which they did not plan with the people, that constitution must also be regarded as being faulty. If the army, who are distinguished men and women, who have served the country, defended the territorial integrity of the country can come together to put together rules and regulations which they feel is good for the country and then all of us are faulting it, that it was not a product of the people and it stands, that same way, if any group of persons, with or without our mandate partake in any meeting and take agreement without involving us in the processes that led to that agreement, then that agreement is not a product of the people.
Are you saying that in his representation at the Senate, he did not follow due process, that what he did was not for Abia North people that he is represented himself?
Yes, what we have given them when they were elected to represent us is not an open cheque, we have given them authority to stand in on our behalf, but for every action which they take, they must carry us along and we must make our input. And that is why it is a very important component of every parliament to conduct public hearing before they come out with any suggestion for any matter involving that National Assembly. So a public hearing is a must. It must take place and this public hearing are in various ways; they must go to their constituencies and interact with their constituents, interact in a public arena, interact with their constituents and have a bogus discussion. That will help them form their own opinion to enable them participate actively during the process of discussing the draft bill.
What happens in a situation where they did not do that, what does it imply?
It implies failure, failure to follow due process, failure to do the right thing, yes, they have failed and that is why the document itself has also failed. It has failed and they are now trying to come up with excuses which are not tenable. That is why a senator will now be talking about network in a place where it is obvious that there is network. The issue is not in network because it is a verifiable fact that there is network at Igbere. It is a verifiable fact; even the National Communications Commission (NCC), will tell you that Abia state is one of the states in Nigeria which have been covered, 99% by a mobile network. We have issues with some states like Bayelsa, Rivers, because of some tiny villages which are on their own, operating in an island. We have problem with such places. We also have the same challenges with some places in the north. But in Nigeria today, when you talk of network coverage, if you talk about the cities, Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, are number one. Then the whole of south west is covered by mobile networks. The whole of south east is covered by mobile network and there is over 90% coverage of south south. So they did not involve us. If they involved us , they would not be giving those kind of excuses they are giving because those excuses are not only derogatory to them, but they are laughable and that was why, if you observe what happen, when it is time to go to the parliament, parliamentarians are not supposed to say anything; either yeah or nay.
But my senator tried to use the opportunity to offer certain explanation, to justify his nay. It was not necessary. If he had engaged us, we would have been the ones to tell him of the villages in Abia North that does not have network and then we will go ahead to tell him that in as much as it is a noble idea to go digital, to apply digital voting, at the same time, that NCC should be directed; that those areas where we do not currently have mobile networks, that mobile network infrastructure should be developed in those places within the next 12 calendar months. So those things will come as another kind of budget to the National Assembly and when it comes, they will give it sophisticated hearing because they know why it is coming and then the Executive will also do the same thing to ensure that funds are released for such infrastructures to be put in place.
What actually is your take on this ?
Now, my take in all this is that I am not particularly concerned about a nay and a yeah answer, or making a favourable case for any of them. My concern is that the promoter of the bill; the distinguished senator who sponsored that bill voted against his own bill. If the sponsor of a bill voted against his own bill, I think there is no basis to have a contrary opinion. I think that the senate should have requested the INEC, the umpire itself, to generate an updated electoral bill which will be based on electronic voting. As the establishment or institution responsible to conduct election in Nigeria, they would have taken their time to come up with something based on technologies which they would consider friendly and applicable in the Nigerian circumstance. And which budget can also be handled by the present Federal government so that they will not come up with something, terrifying budget tomorrow to fund a bill which might not be acceptable for them but they are just doing it because it has become a bill.
You have faulted the bill as well as the sponsor, you said that the bill was not based on technologies that would be applicable in Nigerian circumstance, what would you have expected to be done by our representatives in the house ?
Currently, the draft did not also experience a holistic public debate. I am from Abia North, and there was no time my senator conveyed a meeting, I mean the distinguished senator Orji Kalu; there was no time he conveyed a meeting of political stakeholders of Abia North for us to have access to that draft bill and for us to make our contributions, it never happened. So the draft is their draft which they want to transform to a bill. That is not the way to work out any bill in a sane society. You must involve those who voted you to power, you must give them privilege information so that you can harvest their opinions, harvest their input, and then harmonize it and then form your own opinion, form your own input which would be delivered at plenary or at any other committee where the subject matter will come up for discussion.
What could be the reason why a Senator would sponsor a bill and during voting , the sponsor of the bill will vote against the same bill ?
There could be multiple reasons responsible for his action, and one of them could be that he first woke up from sleep and then decided to put something together in the name of electronic proposal or that somebody, one of his aides, put those things together, he looked at the document and he thought it was excellent. At the point when that document has reached a certain level, the same person realized that I don’t think all is well. If the same person had engaged stakeholders discussion, because they are there at Abuja, the Chairman of NCC is there at Abuja, a senator can easily reach him and the Chairman of NCC can allow such senator to have access to their technical people who understand some of these things, and then they can be having discussion over the period of time and then over this period of time, they can mould an acceptable idea which the person will now go for further discussion with his constituents that this is what I want to prompt up, how do you see it? Some will say it is good because of this, some will say, this is the problem. So when those i’s are dotted and T’s are crossed, by the time he will present the draft, even if the draft suffers any kind of adjustment, adjustment will be less than 10-20% of the original content of the draft because enormous work was done on the draft which is a product of high level of consultations. Do 10 or 20% adjustments before it will now become a subject of voting then. Nobody knows whether most of these things were done or not. This man, I think he should be captured in the Guiness book of record, as an author who passed a vote of no confidence on his own book. He is an author. Imagine Chinua Achebe coming out to say Things Fall Apart is no longer a good book and should not be recommended for schools. That is exactly what that senator has done. Remember that time had been spent by senate; both at plenary, committee to discuss this document. So a man who has presented such a document to for no reason what so ever, vote against that document, he was just playing with the sensibility of his colleagues and himself. But he should not be condemned because as they will say, it is better to dissolve a marriage even on the wedding day if you are sure the marriage will not work than simply getting into the marriage and then begin to talk of divorce one week later.
How far do you think that e-voting transmission of result can go in assisting Nigeria to overcome our electoral flaws?
Be reminded that e-voting is a process by which electoral authentic results can be transmitted to the major INEC cyber without fears of manipulations.
It has progressed in technology from traditional days when voters dropped votes, marked on a shell, shared of voting or card into a box to the current days when voting is controlled by electronics and the processes of the votes remain unseen to the human eye.
Despite the change in method of voting, the basic facet of good voting, remains the same almost everywhere and they mostly border on; maintaining voters anonymity, accuracy of vote, security of the system being used and then the prevention of fraud, making sure that votes counts and making sure that there are no manipulation on the part of those involved in the voting.
Can E-Voting help electoral process in Nigeria based on the description that you have given?
Yes, now, mindful of the background given , it has becomes very clear that E-voting is a destination which every forward looking country must find itself in. It’s a destination which if we are not there today, we must put the necessary requirements to make sure that we are there tomorrow. So it’s a course that we must undertake; Electronic voting. In doing so, there are required infrastructure; ICT infrastructures that must be put in place. This infrastructure must be such that can easily be used by voters without complications and must be seen to be fully deployed all over the country without any difficulty, and to begin with, there must be a voters register which is authentic, authentic in the sense of a voters register devoid of multiplicity of registration by a one voter, it must be a voters register where a lone voter cannot register more than once. Any voters register where a voter with a particular biometric can do double, triple or multiple registration without being dictated, is not a good one, and if you base your E-voting on such a register, then, ab-initio, you have failed.
Are you in other words saying that we cannot apply e-voting with our current voters register?
I am saying that the current voters register is not good enough because most of the issues I have raised are part of this voters register. In this current voters register, there are clear indications that we have voters who have registered as many times as possible, either in one polling unit, or across several polling units, it is not acceptable. And then, I also talked about the senators who voted, and for those of them who voted for, probably did so because they know that it is the way to go, as I said earlier that it is a noble destination which every country that is not currently practicing E-voting should make sure that they get to in the shortest possible time.
Those who voted against, may have also done that on the premise that the infrastructures which we currently have are not sustainable, cannot sustain and then in the whole, from the way those voting went, it is clear that the senators voted based on party instruction because over 90% of APC senators, voted nay, and over 90% of PDP voted yeah. So it is acceptable for me to say that that could have been based on party instruction. I am a member of PDP, and we have a leader in the senate who is the minority leader of the caucus in the person of very distinguished senator Enyinnaya Abaribe. He had made it public knowledge that the version of the draft bill in the senate had some information that was inconsistent with certain terms of Nigeria constitution which means that, that draft bill cannot fly because no law can be made by the senate or the parliament which is not in tandem with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So with that alone, it is good to say that they were casting their votes on a faulty document. Even though he also said that the House of Representatives had a better version of the same bill and they would prefer to adopt that version.
