… hopefully ,President Buhari would assent re -amended electoral bill
Olusola Bello
The Federal Government said the country has 75 percent 3G network coverage just as the National Assembly has transmitted the re-amended electoral bill to President Muhammadu Buhari for his assent.
With this disclosure it is believed that president Muhammadu Buhari would not have any reason to hold back his assent under the guise that electronic transmission of results was is not realisable due to poor network coverage across the country.
The minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Ali Pantami disclosed this in a speech he delivered at the Sensitization On Sustainable Frequency Spectrum Management Development For Non Commercial Radio Users that was held at Digital Bridge Institute in Lagos.
According to the minister who was represented by the permanent Secretary Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Bitrus Bakko Nabalu, at the occasion, he said the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 emphasizes the need for ensuring use of Spectrum.
The policy he stated reiterates the need to take into cognizance that spectrum is a ‘Use it or Lose it’ scarce resource to encourage its optimal use.
“That is why through an open and transparent spectrum planning, we were able to free a lot of spectrums for LTE including TV White Space deployment and broadband. It is worthy of note that the demand for internet access and availability of spectrum has stimulated the growth in 3G services which covers about 75 percent of the Nigerian populations,” he said.
.“Efficient use of spectrum, spirit, right of way, site acquisition policies, availability of infrastructure and market efficiency are some of the other issue we have addressed in the Nigerian National Broadband plan 2020-2025”
Some Nigerians have said with the admittance of the Federal Government that the network coverage of 3G cover over 75 percent of the country, the President should not have any excuse for not assenting the electoral bill on account of lack of network coverage.
The Senate had passed the electoral bill on July 15. The next day, again amid chaos, the House of Representatives passed it too.
Allegations of backdoor moves to alter the consensus provisions of the bill were rife prior to the passage, all of which the National Assembly denied.
The proponents wanted the National Assembly to legally empower INEC with the responsibility to transmit election results electronically.
However, legislators, especially of the All Progressives Congress, many of whom voted along party line voted against it.
At the House of Representatives, the passage of the bill was brokered by a remarkable legislative maneuver which the opposition described as undemocratic.
INEC’s power to transmit election results electronically is now subject to the proposition of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the approval of the National Assembly.
Assisted by the submission by the NCC the National Assembly believes that INEC does not have the capacity to do it on its own, a development that has startled officials at the electoral commission, this newspaper learnt.
But it was soon to be discovered that the NCC, the regulatory agency for the telecoms sector, misled the lawmakers and indeed Nigerians on the electronic transmission of results; a view also shared by INEC
When the debate at the House of Representatives on electronic transmission of results became heated, the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, ruled that the NCC and INEC would be invited to guide the House on whether or not electronic transmission of results was practicable across the country.
When the NCC representative, Adeleke Adewolu, appeared before the lawmakers , he said less than half of the polling units in Nigeria have the needed network coverage for the transmission of election results.
The NCC commissioner, technical services, Ubale Maska, corroborated this by saying that by the survey the NCC conducted in 2018, about 50.3 per cent of the 109,000 polling units out of 119,000 polling units have 3G network facilities. Others, he noted, are with 2G network, while some are without coverage as of 2018.
To the consternation of many Nigerians including opposition lawmakers, INEC was not allowed to brief lawmakers on the matter, with majority of the lawmakers, perhaps influenced by the position of the NCC, voting against electronic transmission of results.
INEC, however, publicly faulted the claim that electronic transmission of results was not realisable due to poor network coverage across the country.
