Senators-elect have vehemently opposed agitations for Open Voting Pattern for the election of Senate leadership in the ninth Senate .
Senators-elect who pleaded anonymity explained that ‘Secret Voting’ system is what in the 2015 Senate’s rule book adding that ‘Secret Voting’ system is backed by International Law.
Senators-elect who won their election on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) warmed against unnecessary heating of politics on the Voting Pattern to be adopted because the Senate’s rule book has made it clear.
One of the lawmakers-elect backing the ‘Secret Voting’ system with International law said,” Article 21, 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “the will of the people shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”
He also added ” The Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights (the Pact of San Jose, Costa Rica) which grants every citizen of member states of the Organization of American States the right and opportunity “to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the will of the voters.
“The Paragraph 7.4 of the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, obligates the member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to “ensure that votes are cast by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedure, and that they are counted and reported honestly with the official results made public.”
The Senator-elect said that it is laughable to call for open ballot voting in order to impose Lawan on lawmakers like ‘class captain’.
In addition, A Senator-elect from North warned the party leadership led by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to stop bullying and arm twisting Senators-elect on the choice of Senate leadership because the approach may eventually back fire on the party.
The position of Senators-elect juxtaposed, the comment of Senator representing Kaduna Central in the National Assembly, Shehu Sani who said the All Progressives Congress (APC) may not have learnt its lessons from the 2015 incident that saw Senator Bukola Saraki and Honourable Yakubu Dogara emerge as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives respectively.
While appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Sani said that the interest of other APC lawmakers in the leadership positions for the 9th Assembly could result in a repeat of what happened four years ago.
“With what I have seen, there are a lot of statements coming from the APC making positions that they have learnt their mistakes and this time around, they are going to make some corrections and achieve what they want to achieve.
“But in the real sense, I don’t think lessons were learnt from what I can see on the ground. If lessons were learnt, there would be only one candidate from the APC. As long as we have three contenders from the APC, there is a likelihood of a repeat of what happened in 2015,” he stated.
