The Director-General of the Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman, yesterday said the amendment of the Electoral Act which forced political parties to adopt direct primaries is vague and would create room for manipulations.
Lukman, who made the call in a statement, stressed all grey areas on the matter must be eliminated in order to entrench democratic ideals, adding that the amended Electoral Act did not address some grey areas on the country’s electoral process.
There are reports that the amended Electoral Act which was passed by the National Assembly last week had been forwarded to the President for assent. The Bill, when signed into law, is expected to address all anomalies associated with the indirect primary method of selecting party candidates for elective offices.
Nonetheless, the PGF chief argued that the amendment does not redress the political parties’ management of their membership registration which was essential for a credible direct primary to take place.
He insisted that the clamour for direct primaries was borne out of the disaffection by some stakeholders over the methods adopted by their parties on the choice of candidates for elections.
Lukman said from the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives to all the APC and House Representatives members, they must have all paid for every vote they got during the internal party primary leading to their election.
According to the PGF boss, based on the proposed new Section 87 of the amended Electoral Act, which leaves many open spaces for manipulation in the law, problems of internal democracy within parties may only get worse.
He said the whole debate about adopting the direct method as part of the Electoral Act is mainly an APC agenda and there may be a calculated attempt by a section of APC leadership whose interest is to hoodwink APC members and Nigerians with the direct primary dummy.
Lukman strongly recommended that given that the whole controversy about the proposed Electoral Act amendment is limited to the new insertions in Section 87, the National Assembly should consider reworking issues under the Section, to make it unambiguous.
He said the reworked new provisions should go through all the legislative processes, including a public hearing, to enable Nigerians also contribute to making the law.
Lukman appealed to the National Assembly to rework the Section and take it through all the legislative processes before presenting it to the President.
