The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has called on the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, to probe the conduct of some senators members of the Senate who are allegedly involved in the removal of the provisions on real-time transmission of election results from the Electoral Act amendment Bill.
The lawmakers were said to have removed the provisions during plenary after the majority of the senators had voted for the inclusion of the provisions and without any debate on the proposed removal of the said provisions.
SERAP made this request in a statement by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, and sent to the Chairman, Code of Conduct Bureau, Abdullahi Usman Bello.
The rights organization asked the Bureau to promptly and effectively investigate the conduct of any members of the National Assembly and officers of the executive branch who allegedly altered the Tax Reform Bills which resulted in the reported discrepancies between the harmonised versions of the tax reform bills passed by the National Assembly and the copies signed into law and gazetted by the Federal Government.”
According to the organization, there are also issues of conflict of interest, abuse of office, non-disclosure of interests, lack of due process, and erosion of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers in the exercise of legislative power.
It stated that the petition is submitted pursuant to paragraphs 1 and 9 of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers contained in the Fifth Schedule, Part 1 to the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended) and sections 5 and 13 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act.
“Where lawmaking is shaped by abuse of office and conflict of interest, it ceases to be a legitimate exercise of constitutional and fiduciary responsibility and becomes a legal and ethical infraction prohibited under the Code of Conduct for Public Officers,” the statement read in part.
