During his second attempt, the governors were adamant. Nobody was ready to contribute. The only governor that was ready to volunteer was Ali Modu Sheriff, the then Borno State governor who gave N10m on the eve of the election. But the N10m didn’t reach Buhari. It was N9m that reached him on Friday evening whereas election was on the following Saturday morning. Some people said we shouldn’t accept it because, how do we spend the N9 million when the election is tomorrow? He (Buhari) rejected it. Whether it was returned (to Sheriff) or not, I don’t know. We went into the election like that and failed. The three committees sat and had an assignment and came back after some days. We met and deliberated. I was the chairman of one of the committees. I gave my report. The other committees too gave their reports. After deliberations, we went for NEC and decided to look for a small party and continue the struggle. There was a unanimous decision on this.
The House of Representatives was thrown into disarray on Thursday as members debated section 52(2) of the electoral amendment bill, which deals with electronic transmission.
Also on Thursday, All Progressives Congress (APC) senators forced through a version of the bill that constrains INEC to seek permission from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Assembly before employing electronic voting in any part of the country.
According to the lawmakers opposed to sacrosanct electronic transmission of results, some parts of the country do not have the required network coverage.
An executive commissioner at the NCC, Adeleke Adewolu, told lawmakers at the House of Representatives on Friday that only 50 per cent of the country had the 3G coverage required for transmission.
“This is an open secret. There was an implied agreement. Even in law, there is implied and expressed act. If something is expressed, there are no two ways about it. There was an implied agreement that he would take over. That is why he didn’t back out after the first tenure. If Tinubu knew that he would not benefit, he would have backed out during Buhari’s first tenure. But he knows there was an agreement,” he said.
Hanga however expressed doubt that the APC will give its ticket to Tinubu, predicting a fight ahead, with power blocs among governors and some forces in the Presidency.
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