…APC, PDP governors mount pressure
Stakeholders in Nigeria’s electoral system have continued to lament the continued delay by President Muhammadu Buhari in signing the Electoral Act (amendment) Bill into law.
When on Thursday last week, they gathered in Abuja for a one-day Policy Dialogue, organised by the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, (NILDS), anxiety was written on the faces of many stakeholders as they took turns to lament the continued delay by Mr. President in signing the Bill into law.
The soothing words of Senior Special Adviser to President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Babajide Omoworare, who tried to give assurances that the president would append his signature to the Bill failed to elicit positive reactions for obvious reasons.
Omoworare, who was apparently relaying second-hand information, had noted that he had it on good authority that Buhari was meeting with the Attorney-General of the Federation, (AGF), Abubakar Malami, and other key stakeholders on the Electoral Bill, and that he was inclined to signing the reworked document this time.
Discussants at the policy dialogue, among whom were the former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega; current INEC boss, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu; Country Representative of Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Adebowale Olorunmola; Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Media, Benjamin Kalu, among others, while expressing their reservations with the continued delay, appealed to President Buhari to assent the Bill, as according to them, time was running out.
Jega in particular, decried what he described as a growing lack of sense of urgency by both the Executive and the Legislature to complete work on the Bill, noting that Nigeria cannot continue to dilly-dally much further on the Bill and go into fresh elections in 2023 with the same old laws.
On his part, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood, who was represented by his Chief Technical Adviser, Prof., Bolade Eyinla, lamented that the snail-pace of work on the Bill was beginning to take a toll on INEC’s preparation for the general elections next February.
He noted that with the new Electoral law still being awaited, the Commission has not been able to come up with clear-cut guidelines for the conduct of the elections, even as he pointed out that INEC, and not the Executive or the National Assembly, should initiate proposed amendments to the Electoral laws, as being practiced in neighbouring Ghana.
The concerns and the sense of desperation in the tone of the stakeholders are not misplaced, and Nigerians who are hopeful of a new Electoral Act as a necessary condition to ensure credible polls in 2023, may be hoping in vain, as the Bill transmitted to the president a fortnight ago by the National Assembly will almost certainly be rejected by him, even as feelers suggest that it’s a ‘conspiracy’ between the legislature and the executive that will continue until 2023.
There are strong speculations that several State governors, particularly those of the ruling APC, are presently lobbying the president to veto the Bill, even as it is understood that the Attorney General, Malami is unlikely to advice his principal to append his signature.
Indeed, speaking on a television programme yesterday, Malami, who is known to wield enormous influence on the president, and who had advised him to withhold his assent to the first version of the Bill in December, hinted that he will still advise the president not to sign the re-transmitted Bill if it is against dictates of democracy.
According to the minister, the bill, which the National Assembly transmitted to the Presidency the second time on Monday a fortnight ago, got to him for legal advice
only on Monday last week.
Meanwhile, The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors Forum has urged President Buhari to immediately sign the Electoral Bill into law.
The governors’ call was contained in a communiqué read by its Vice-Chairman, Abia State governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, after its regular meeting held yesterday at the Bayelsa State Government House, Yenagoa.
