
The House of Representatives has gone digital with its legislative processes with the installation of e-parliament facilities inside the chambers of the House.
the facilities will facilitate e-voting, e-registration of members in attendance at every particular sitting and simplify documentation during sitting.
Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila who inspected the installation on Friday told newsmen that digitalizing the legislative process which was one of the items in its legislative agenda was made possible in collaboration with a private company as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility.
He said with the installation, the legislative process has practically been simplified while the chamber will not be practically paperless as all items required have been uploaded into the system while, while those needed on a daily basis such as order paper and motions will be uploaded on a daily basis.
Gbajabiamila said “What we had here prior to now is an obsolete system for any legislative House to the extent that the spare parts were not available for sale any more. The house, through its share persistent, hardwork has been able to put this system together which has the capability to meet any standard anywhere in the world. It is one of the things that we promised to do in the 9th Assembly. I am happy that we have been able to do that.

“Now, there are one or two things that we have not been able to test. This is not a commissioning exercise, but an inspection. I believe that in the next 24 to 48 hours, everything will be up and running. We are very happy that we have been able to come this far.
“This system was put together by the Leadership of the House through spirited efforts and in collaboration with the private sector, particularly a gentleman who I will, at some point introduce to the House. He did this as part of his Corporate Social Responsibility.
“The gentleman, Wale Ajisebutu of 21st Century Technologies. We are happy because you find this anywhere in the world. It is seemless and provide for e-voting and the chambers is more or less now paperless. All the documents you need for legislative business has been uploaded. We have the constitution here, the House rules, code of conduct, legislative agenda, the Order paper on a daily basis.
“Everything is uploaded here for the benefit of all the members to follow discussion. From up here, I can do a lot of magic which I will not disclose to you now. Even your cameras, I can shut them down from here. That is how advanced this system is.
“We are very happy that we have been able to put this up because it is one of the things we promised to do.
“Apart from the e-voting, it will provide members the capacity to research on the spot while on the floor of the House especially when an issue arises. That is dedicated solely for that purpose. It is also connected to our attendance process.
“So, we will now have e-registration. Rather than signing in manually, you can now log in or use your thumb print to sign in. no body signs for anybody any longer because your thumb ID is specific only to you.
“Each system has its own speaker, but we have disconnected that so that we will have loader speaker for everyone. But you can bring your own earpiece.
“When you have foreign guest who cannot speak English which is our lingual Franca here, the unit has the capacity to translate from English to whatever language the guest understands so that he can follow discussions on the floor”
Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Publicity, Benjamin Kalu however told newsmen that members of the House will be educated on the use of the facilities when the House resume for plenary, saying “it isnpart of the package. We are not paying for that. When the House resume, we will take one day to educate the members so that we will all be on the same page.
“It is not a difficult thing to do. Infact, if you can operate your phone, you can operate the system. You can do your research while plenary is going on. But it has been configured in a way that there will be no distractions”.
Kalu said the upgrading of the chamber to an e-parliament platform was part of the determination of the leadership of the House to make the House one of best parliament in the world, adding that Nigerians will now be able to follow the legislative processes closely and know those who attend plenary and those who are not attending plenary.
Demonstrating the facilitates before the Speaker, his Special Adviser on Technology, Mohammed Lalame said all social media platforms have been demobilized in the systems to avoid distractions during plenary, while the google app has also been demobilized so that the manufacturers cannot have access to vital information from the House.
The House is expected to test run the e-parliament installations when it resume from its annual vacation on Tuesday, September 29, 2020.
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