A bill seeking to make election debates compulsory for presidential
and governorship candidates has scaled second reading at the senate.
The senate voted in favour of the electoral act amendment
bill at Thursday’s plenary session.
Sponsored by Abdulfatai Buhari who represents Oyo north, the
bill also seeks to mandate vice-presidential and deputy governorship candidates
to participate in such debates.
Candidates in elections in Nigeria are currently not
mandated to participate in any; in fact the two leading candidates in the last
presidential election shunned the exercise.
The bill empowers the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) to organise mandatory debates for the candidates to “help
boost and strengthen he electoral process”.
Most of the lawmakers agreed making the debates mandatory
for candidates will help in their assessment, and improve Nigeria’s electoral
process.
Buhari, the sponsor, said it will also be used to sample the
candidates’ readiness on a wide range of burning issues, “as is being done in
other developed countries”.
“Voters learn from the debate, and are more accurately able
to judge candidates and get additional information about them,” he said.
“It also helps the candidates to speak on a wide range of
issues as the national assembly is doing with ministerial nominees.
“If the ministers can be assessed, it is logically
imperative for the president and others to be adequately assessed also.”
Ibrahim Oloriegbe representing Kwara central likened candidates
in elections to prospective employees, and said the electorate “as their
employers, should be able to test them through a series of debate to cover key
areas of the economy”.
Adeola Olamilekan representing Lagos west said the bill is
simply telling Nigerians: “Know your candidates.”
“It will give Nigerians an idea about the capacity of the
candidates to govern the country,” he said.
There was, however, some opposition to the bill, including
from Barau Jibrin who is from Kano north. He said the debates should be made
optional and not compulsory.
“Maybe somebody could not attend the debate because of
sickness. I believe it should not be mandatory, but optional,” he said.
Danjuma Goje representing Gombe central also said the
debates should not be within the jurisdiction of INEC.
”Most times, candidates are assessed and awarded marks
during these debates. So if INEC is doing that, that means the election has
already been determined,” the senator said.
The red chamber subsequently referred the bill to its
committee on INEC for further action.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com