Electoral Act: Don’t Override Buhari, Jega Warns NASS
The National Assembly should not override President Muhammadu Buhari, over the stalemate on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, a former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has said.
According to him, since 2010, the country have not had any substantive improvement on electoral laws, while in the 2021 Electoral Bill, there were a lot of substantive things.
Jega said this on Sunday night Abuja during a Citizens’ Town Hall meeting on Electoral Bill 2021 organised by Yiaga Africa and development partners.
At the event, Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State highlighted the position of governors saying they were not against direct primaries.
Jega said, “With the way the provisions of the bill stand, the National Assembly should do the needful, rather than contemplating overriding the President by removing the contentious provisions.”
He said that the Electoral Act Amendment Bill contained quite a lot of good things that could enhance electoral integrity.
According to him, what was key was to give INEC the law to improve ahead of the 2023 general election and also the off-season elections before the 2023 polls.
He said, “The challenge is what the National Assembly introduced in the Electoral Bill which is without serious contemplation. It is very important that we have a lot of legal framework.
“I think clearly that the electoral process would have better integrity if we do direct primaries appropriately.
“Any governor that manipulates direct primaries can also manipulate the primaries indirectly.”
He also said that INEC made 31 recommendations to the amendment of the 2010 Electoral Act to conduct credible elections, but the National Assembly only approved 25 of the recommendations.
On his part, Sule said the 36 state governors “are not afraid of direct primaries as being alleged by some Nigerians.”
He said what they opposed was limiting the choices of the people.
“In the APC constitution, we have three options: consensus, direct primaries and indirect primaries.
“The option should be left open and it will not be a surprise that some parties may even adopt direct primaries,” Sule said.
He said that governors were happy with the contributions made into the bill and from what he had heard, everyone was saying the same thing, thus the issue of the direct primaries should be removed.
Sule said, “I am not the closest (person) to the President but working with the President all this while, I can say that President Buhari would sign the bill into law once the right things are done.”
Also, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Apata, said, “I am so disappointed with the way things have turned up. Everything about the Electoral Bill spelt progress but we can’t get it right if steps are not taken.
“Everything about the bill spells progress for the country. The bill should have been passed long ago. The President and the National Assembly being of the same party should have ironed this out to avoid this logjam.”
The NBA president also said that the booby trap set may catch up with the nation and send the country back to square zero.
He, therefore, urged the National Assembly to take out the provision of direct primaries and transmit immediately to the President for assent, who should be given the benefit of the doubt.
The Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said the timely passage of the bill would be in the interest of deepening democracy and national development.
Itodo said the non-passage of the bill into law had robbed Nigerians the opportunity of implementing important innovations for the forthcoming FCT council election and the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states.
