Electoral Bill: Senate, Reps Differ, Conference Committee To Harmonize Bill

ABUJA, Dec 10, (THEWILL) - The Senate and the House of Representatives may have to resort to conference of both chambers to agree on one electoral bill.

The Senate today said it will pass a version of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill that will be completely different from what the House of Representatives passed on Wednesday.

It also said the implication would mean that only a conference committee of both chambers can sort out the differences through harmonization.

Senate’s spokesman, Senator Ayogu Eze told a press conference that the passage of the contentious electoral bill does not mean that the Senate has done likewise and the same thing.

The Senate version he said would definitely be different from what the House of Representatives passed.

“A lot of you thought that the passage of the electoral Act by the House was also the passage by the Senate, I want to use this opportunity to clarify that we have not passed the electoral Act in the Senate, we will pass it next week and then when we pass it, we are expecting that there will be a lot of differences between the version that we will pass. “We are expecting that there will be a conference committee that will look at harmonizing it speedily, so that we can pass it before we proceed on holiday,” Eze said.