A cross-section of Nigerians are mounting pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the Electoral Act amendment Bill into law.
Recall that the Bill was passed by the National Assembly on November, 9 and subsequently transmitted to the President on November, 19.
The pressure is being mounted on the President amidst concerns that he may repeat the scenario that played out on four different occasions when he refused to sign the amended Electoral Bill in the build-up to the 2019 general elections.
The president has until December 19, which is 30 days from the date it was transmitted to him, to sign the bill into law. Should he refuse to assent to it, he is expected to write the National Assembly to State his reasons.
The pressure on the president to sign the amendment Bill is coming from a cross-section of Nigerians, including the Organised Labour.T he Nigerian Labour Congress, (NLC), in a letter to the president dated November 23, 2021, titled: ‘Please assent to the Electoral Bill,’ noted that State governors and other selfish interests were putting pressure on Buhari to reject the Bill largely due to the provision for compulsory adoption of direct primaries.
Labour leader Ayuba Wabba, in the letter, urged Buhari to demonstrate courage and leadership by signing the bill.
Although President Buhari has not made his feelings known concerning the Bill, he has reportedly written the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu to seek advice on the amendment bill. It was also reported that the president has sought the advice of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
The President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, had disclosed that Buhari was consulting with ‘relevant stakeholders’ before assenting to the Bill. However, Nigerians, including political activists and leaders of civil society organisations, are insisting that Buhari should sign the Bill without delay.
The Secretary-General of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, (CNPP) – the umbrella body of all registered political parties in the country, Willy Ezeugwu, in an interview, expressed his doubt over Buhari’s sincerity in his often repeated pledge to reform the country’s electoral system.
Ezeugwu observed that the Buhari administration had not been listening to Nigerians and suggested that the ongoing consultations over the amendment bill was a sign that the president was ignoring the people.
Similarly, the Executive Director Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, (CISLAC), and Chairman of the board of Transition Monitoring Group, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, in a published interview yesterday, insisted that Buhari should consult Nigerians and not politicians, who, according to him, were the ones benefiting from the flawed electoral system.
According to Rafsanjani, Buhari must listen to the voters who were the victims of electoral fraud in Nigeria.
The consensus among many Nigerians is that President Buhari now has an opportunity to leave a legacy of free, fair and credible elections by signing the amendment Bill into law.
