NASS committed to credible elections in 2019

Speaker of House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, has said that the Legislature is committed to ensuring that Nigeria gets credible elections in 2019.

Dogara expressed the commitment at a meeting of the leadership of the National Assembly with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.

He acknowledged the gains recorded in the 2015 elections and urged INEC to ensure that standards were improved upon.

“I want to reiterate that we are committed to an electoral process that will better our experiences of our 2015 general elections.

“We already set a standard where the world has avowed our electoral process to be fair to a certain degree and we must not go below that standard,” Dogara said.

He pledged the commitment of the lawmakers to enabling INEC to achieve the goal of credible polls through appropriation.

The speaker expressed concerns about what he described “an emergency approach’’ being taken towards the 2019 elections.

“As leaders of the National Assembly, we are committed to appropriating whatever is needed within the confines of the resources of the nation for INEC to be able to actualise this and that is why this meeting is important.

“However, personally, I have some questions that I intend to raise, but I will raise these in the process of discussion because it appears that we are treating this 2019 election as an emergency.

“It ought not to be, so that is just my concern,” he added.

On his part, INEC chairman thanked the leadership of the National Assembly for its continued support.

He stressed the need to act quickly, especially as elections were exactly a hundred and ninety-one days away.

“Let me, on behalf of the commission, thank your Excellency and the leadership of the National Assembly for this meeting.

“We are now re-energised and more reassured that our plans for the 2019 general elections are absolutely on course as far as funding is concerned,” Yakubu said.