Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, has appealed to the National Assembly to rebuild the confidence of Nigerians in it and demonstrate its sincerity with the constitutional review by first passing the pass the pending Electoral Bill. He made the call on Wednesday when he received members of the Special House of Representatives Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution for the South-South states after the second day of the public hearing for Rivers, Cross River, and Akwa Ibom States in Uyo, the state capital.
Governor Emmanuel stated that the Electoral Bill was a yearning of the people that must be prioritised and called on the Legislative and Executive arms of the Federal Government to expedite actions to bring the bill alive. He opined that this would remedy the seeming apathy of Nigerians towards the Constitution review process. “As we are working on the Constitution review, Nigerians will want to see the sincerity of the National Assembly. “If you want us to believe this exercise, give us the Electoral Bill as soon as possible and let the Executive sign it into law, then we will believe that this one will also see the light of day,” the governor said.
He commended the Speaker of the ninth Assembly for the relative harmony in the House of Representatives and the selection of members to pilot the review process in the South-South. According to Governor Emmanuel, as important as the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is, the most important and urgent at the moment is the Electoral Bill. He called on the Red and Green chambers of the National Assembly to consider the plea as the yearning of over 200 million Nigerians.
