The Peoples Democratic Party caucus in the House of Representatives has called for criminal investigation and prosecution of officials of the Nigerian Communications Commission for alleged perjury.
The leader of the PDP Caucus, Kingley Chinda, in a statement on Tuesday, alleged that the officials lied under oath while appearing before the House last Friday to explain the possibility of having results of elections transmitted electronically from across Nigeria.
Following a stalemated consideration of the report on the Electoral Act, 2010 (Amendment) Bill over the controversial Clause 52(2), the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, had called for suspension of the exercise and summoned the NCC and the Independent National Electoral Commission to appear and guide the lawmakers this Friday.
While INEC did not show up, officials of the NCC led by the Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu; Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Ubale Maska, and two others had appeared before the lawmakers.
Maska, however, answered all the questions asked by the lawmakers.
However, in the statement titled, ‘NCC Lied to Nigerians on Electronic Transmission of Votes and Should Face Prosecution’, the PDP caucus alleged that officials of the commission misled the House with their presentation.
The statement read in part, “It was a show of shame on the floor of the House of Representatives on Friday, July 17, 2020, during the consideration of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
“The comedy of errors started by the House stopping INEC from appearing before the House to prevent the nation from learning the truth and allowing only the NCC to appear to discuss issues on the ability or otherwise of INEC to handle electronic transmission of votes.
“Officials of the NCC, led by Executive Director, Ubale Maska, who represented the Executive Vice Chairman, Prof Umaru Garba Danbatta, appeared and an oath was administered on them consistent with the Section 5 of the Legislative House (Powers and Privileges) Act, 2017.
“While testifying before the House, on the adoption of electronic transmission of results from the units, Ubale Maska claimed that the 2018 Technical Report of the NCC showed that only about ‘50 per cent of the polling units had 3G, while 49 per cent had 2G network and below’. His answers and body language clearly betrayed his intense desire to mislead the House and the nation.
“He cleverly sought to rely on 2018 data in 2021, when they knew or ought to know that Internet penetration has advanced substantially in Nigeria since 2018.
“Indeed, a perusal of the NCC website even today shows that the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 (P .33) says that by September 2019, the spread of 3G/LTE had reached 74.2 per cent in Nigeria.”
The caucus also recalled that a telecommunications giant, MTN Nigeria, recently announced that it had achieved extensive nationwide network coverage of 89.9 per cent.
“This is just MTN, not to talk of other networks,” Chinda noted
THE PUNCH
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