News:
Hon Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah
February 22, 2023
A member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament’s Committee on Judiciary, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah said he expects smooth elections in the upcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Nigeria.
According to him Nigeria has had four smooth democratic elections with the upcoming one as the fifth, and one should expect democracy to be the winner at end of the day by allowing free and fair elections and a smooth transition with whoever emerges as a winner.
He further noted that Benin has already held its parliamentary elections but unfortunately some of his colleagues in the current Community lost their bid to retain their seats – the leader of the Benin delegation and chairman of the Public Account Committee Bida Nouhoume Youssoufou Abdouramani.
Mr. Bedzrah in an interview noted that Liberia and Sierra Leone as well as Guinea Bissau would be going to the polls before the end of the year and at the first Extra Ordinary Session of the Community parliament, one of the things discussed had to do with democracy within the sub-region despite the fact that they touched on common payment platform for the sub-region.
In Liberia the current President would be seeking re-election same with the President of Sierra Leone.
And in Sierra Leone instead of voting for lawmakers from the various constituencies, it is now proportional based on the number of votes that would be secured the highest vote of the various regions is how they would proportionally share the seats.
“So is going to be different from the normal that we know, you represent one constituency when you win that constituency you become a member of parliament and I hear the Supreme Court has affirmed it. So there is going to be some changes in their electoral system; I pray that things would be done properly and whoever wins would be given the opportunity to serve”.
Additionally, in the case of Liberia, he was part of the ECOWAS Parliamentary delegation that went for the early warning signal mission, and one of the things they noticed was the fact that the Biometric Registration (BVG) has not yet been done even as they have few months into the elections as there were issues with procurement.
“So the president appealed to us that if it is creating problem the manual system should be the way to go, so that after the election then they can revert to the BVR but the EC is also insisting that they want to go through the BVR system”.
And added that, there has been problem, but they have not heard of the BVR registration taking place yet. “I am hopeful that that would be done if that is where the EC want to go and there should be an understanding among them before the election. I pray that the sub-region would become peaceful before, during and after the elections”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com