THE GUARDIAN
Simultaneous voting in both chambers makes race unpredictable
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Despite President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s meeting with 109 Senators-elect and 360 House of Representatives members-elect at the President Villa, Abuja, to seek their support for the chosen candidates of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the leadership of the 10th National Assembly, there are indications that the candidates are still not convinced of their chances of victory when the lawmakers-elect cast their votes on Tuesday.
The APC preferred candidates are Godswill Akpabio, Jibrin Barau, Tajudeen Abbas and Benjamin Kalu for Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.
With the refusal of other candidates to withdraw from the race and back the party’s anointed candidates, it was learnt that the Akpabio camp has become uncomfortable with the Senate’s standing rule that stipulates secret voting, which makes it impossible for ‘kingmakers’ to monitor and influence Senators-elect in their favour.
Although the top hierarchy of the APC, including members of the National Working Committee (NWC) and state governors may be present at the plenary, the rule makes it difficult for them to achieve little in the task of influencing voting.
The Senate rule states that “when two or more senators-elect are nominated and seconded as Senate President, the election shall be conducted by electronic voting or voting by secret ballot, which shall be conducted by the Clerks-at-Table using the list of the Senators-elect of the Senate, who shall each be given a ballot paper to cast his vote, with the proposers and seconder as Teller.”
The standing rule further states that, “the Clerk of the Senate shall submit the result of the voting to the Clerk of the National Assembly who shall then declare the Senator-elect who has received the highest number of votes as Senate President-elect. (i) When more than two Senators-elect are nominated and seconded to be Senate President, the division shall be conducted in the manner prescribed in Order 3(3)(e) (ii) herein and the Senator-elect who has received the highest number of votes shall be declared the Senate President- elect.
In the event of two or more Senators-elect receiving highest but equal number of votes, the name of the candidate having the smallest number of votes shall be excluded from subsequent divisions, a further division shall take place. This voting shall continue until one candidate receives a simple majority of votes of the Senators-elect. Such person will then be declared Senate President-elect.”
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