Reps leadership playing politics with Electoral Act — Agbedi

By Lawrence Agbo

Fred Agbedi, a member of the House Committee on Electoral Affairs, has claimed that the House of Representatives’ leadership is marginalising minority legislators and turning discussions on the Electoral Act Amendment into a partisan exercise.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, Agbedi, a legislator running on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform, made the comments.

He maintained that opposing views should be allowed in the legislative process and emphasized that disruptions during plenary were caused by what he called the denial of members’ rights to be heard.

“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.

“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 said.

Agbedi added that although the argument at first was cross-party, it eventually turned polarizing after it was stated that members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) were told to cast their votes in unison.

“At the beginning, there were no party lines; people believed the real-time transmission provision was good enough and reflected what Nigerians wanted. But when the majority party felt threatened, division was used, and APC members were called to one side of the House.”

He insisted that the process’s conclusion did not meet public expectations, saying that the final stance “defrauded” both politicians and citizens.

Agbedi’s remarks coincided with the start of a second day of protests outside the National Assembly Complex, where activists and civil society organizations called for the amendment law to specifically require the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) portal to receive election results in real-time via electronic transmission.