There are indications that Nigerian Senate, on resumption from 2019 elections break, will investigate the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for shifting the 2019 general elections.
Recall that INEC had to reschedule the 2019 general elections slated for February 16 and March 2, to February 23 and March 9, 2019.
But the chairman, Senate Committee on Works, Kabiru Gaya, while fielding questions from State House correspondents on Sunday, said the commission had no reason to postpone the elections because all they required to conduct a credible exercise was provided to them.
Gaya said on this strength, the Senate would on resumption commence the investigation of the electoral umpire upon its return from recess after the governorship election.
Assessing the performance of the electoral umpire at the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections, Gaya, who said, “We will call them and we will investigate the INEC for shifting the election because it caused a poor turnout.
“We will find out the reason – if it is funding, we gave them enough funding, if it was issue of security, the security agencies were ready. So why should INEC shift the elections? We are going to investigate that when we come back after the governorship election. But sadly, generally they did what they could do, I could say, it’s a pass mark.”
Also speaking on the kind of National Assembly that will be expected in the Ninth National Assembly, Gaya said Nigerians should expect a humble Senate, a vibrant Senate and a Senate that will work with Mr President for the good of the country.
He said, “We will give President Buhari all the cooperation that is needed so that we can have a smooth ride, a smooth process, a smooth passage of the budget, a smooth oversight and a relation between the executive and the legislature. We hope by God’s grace we will give him that support.
“We thank Almighty Allah for given us the life, the strength and the ability to President Muhammadu Buhari the opportunity to contest for a second term and to win the election with a very wide margin.”
Gaya, who applauded President Buhari’s infrastructural developmental strides in the first four years of his administration, expressed confidence that the President will do more in the next four
“I remember, when I was inspecting one of the roads in Nigeria here, at that time, President Buhari was abroad, I said President Buhari will, Insha Allah, commission that road in his first term and also in second term, he will do the second part of the road. People doubted me, but thank God, God has done it – President Buhari has run for election and he has won the election.”
The senator said that he was not surprised that President Buhari won the February 23 presidential poll because he has done so much for the country.
Citing some of the achievements that contributed to the president’s victory for a second term, Gaya said, the drastic drop in the importation of rice from 100 percent to five percent, roads and railway projects.
“I am the chairman, Senate Committee on Works, so I know that the budget for 2014 before President Buhari came in was N22 billion. But when Buhari came into office the budget moved up to N220 billion and you can see now the budget is between N300 billion to N400 billion in 2019. Therefore, the roads that were neglected for nineteen years are now motorable. Also, agricultural, the importation of rice has dropped from 100 percent to only five percent,” he added.
He expressed happiness for President Buhari’s victory saying that the election was peaceful and Kano State “has delivered even though the turnout was very low.”
“I believe most of the problem was that INEC shifted the elections and people thought that the election would shifted again and they couldn’t come out to vote. We had just about 30-40 percent turnout all over the country.
“But be that, Kano has delivered, we had the highest number of votes and I think we could say that we are part of the determining factors for President Muhammadu Buhari reelection because he has really done so much for us – the dualisation of Kano-Abuja road and the railway project and so on.
“We are very happy that President Buhari has done that and we believe we will do better. We from the National Assembly, I assure you, I am coming in as a senator for the forth term – 16 years I am one of the few ranking senators in the senate and I thank God for being in the Senate.”
