A member of the House Committee on Electoral Affairs has accused the House of Representatives of defrauding Nigerians with the outcome of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill debate, alleging that the ruling party hijacked a process that initially had bipartisan support.
Fred Agbedi, a PDP lawmaker, made the claim on Tuesday, February 17, while speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, where he gave an insider account of how the debate on electronic transmission of election results unfolded on the floor of the House.
According to Agbedi, the process started on a promising note, with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle agreeing that real-time electronic transmission of results was what Nigerians wanted.
“At the beginning, there were no party lines; people believed the real-time transmission provision was good enough and reflected what Nigerians wanted,” he said.
However, that consensus collapsed when the All Progressives Congress allegedly moved to enforce bloc voting among its members, turning what should have been a national interest debate into a partisan contest.
“But when the majority party felt threatened, division was used, and APC members were called to one side of the House,” Agbedi alleged.
The lawmaker said the final position adopted by the House did not reflect the expectations of ordinary Nigerians or even the initial sentiments expressed by many lawmakers during the debate.
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He accused the House leadership of suppressing dissenting voices, saying minority members were denied the opportunity to speak or raise points of order during the session.
“In the lawmaking process, the people have their opinion. The beauty of democracy is that the majority will have their way while the minority will have their say,” Agbedi said.
“When you ignore members who raise points of order, that is what causes rowdiness. We all have equal rights, and when I speak, I am speaking for my people,” he added.
Agbedi said the rowdy scenes witnessed during the plenary were a direct result of members being shut out rather than accommodated in the debate.
He warned that the manner in which the Electoral Act amendment was handled could damage public confidence in the electoral process ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Consequently, he said Nigerians were watching closely and would judge lawmakers not by their speeches but by whether the laws they pass genuinely protect the integrity of their votes.
The lawmaker insisted that electoral reform should never be treated as a party project, stressing that every Nigerian has a stake in how elections are conducted and how results are transmitted.