By George Mgbeleke <\/p>\n
Former Minister of Transport, Hon Rotimi Amaechi, joined protesters in Abuja on Tuesday as demonstrations over the senate\u2019s rejection of mandatory electronic transmission of election results entered a second day. <\/p>\n
The protests at the National Assembly Complex gate began on Monday, with Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election<\/p>\n
Amaechi who was former governor of Rivers , like Obi, is a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), said leaders should be at the forefront of major protests and should be willing to involve their families.<\/p>\n
The ADC chieftain implored Nigerians to resist the senate, urging all opposition parties to join the protest.Amaechi alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is opposed to electronic transmission of election results because it fears losing elections.
\n\u201cI believe that the opposition parties should come out \u2014 PDP, ADC, everybody should be out \u2014 to protest against the attempt of one party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Amaechi said the ruling party should not fear the process, seeing as several governors and prominent politicians are joining its ranks.<\/p>\n
He added that opposition parties and civil society organisations would continue the protests, even if Senate President Godswill Akpabio and President Bola Tinubu look the other way.<\/p>\n
Amaechi also juxtaposed current living conditions with what obtained during the Muhammadu Buhari administration he served in.\u201cIt is worse now than it was then,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Buhari\u2019s time, at least, even though we were planning to remove subsidy, we had better plans for citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
He further alleged that corruption has spiked under Tinubu.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he believed Tinubu would win the 2027 presidential election, Amaechi said: \u201cLet\u2019s wait and see\u201d, adding that it would be impossible for the incumbent to win the poll.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe will of the people must prevail,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Amaechi compared the living condition with what obtained under the government he served as minister for eight years, saying, \u201cIt is worse now than it was then. In Buhari\u2019s time, at least, even though we were planning to remove subsidy, we had better plans for citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
The protest followed growing outrage over the Senate\u2019s decision to exclude a provision mandating real time electronic transmission of results from polling units in the ongoing amendment of the Electoral Act.<\/p>\n
The House of Representatives had earlier passed a version of the bill making such transmission compulsory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke Former Minister of Transport, Hon Rotimi Amaechi, joined protesters in Abuja on Tuesday as demonstrations over the senate\u2019s rejection of mandatory electronic transmission of election results entered a second day. The protests at the National Assembly Complex gate began on Monday, with Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10977,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975\/revisions\/10977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}