Member of the APC in the House of Representatives, Hon. Basir Dawodu, has argued that the voice vote method used by the National Assembly to approve the state of emergency declaration by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was adequate.
In an interview with Arise News Television on Monday FROM 7:10, he stated that the National Assembly is within its powers to create its own rules and determine the voting process for approving motions tabled by the presiding officer.
According to him, the voice voting process is regularly used by the National Assembly, so calling for a sudden change might be unnecessary. He recalled that when the motion was raised in the House, there were barely any nay votes to show opposition to the state of emergency rule.
Basir Dawodu revealed that he cast his vote through that process, acknowledging the quorum formed for the effective approval of the motion.
His words: “This idea that all the time there has to be a head count, it is not something that is done regularly. Everyday we do voice votes and by the way in this particular situation, you mentioned the Honourable that actually had an issue with the head count, he was there and he was addressed. The speaker said at the end of the day he was going to let us know the number of people that were present and he told us that. If you are now saying that you had 243 and 240 people were present and the voice vote was made and it was unanimous, I didn’t hear anybody say nay that was in that house on that day”.