Femi Falana, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), says some
governors in the All Progressives Congress (APC) are influencing President
Muhammadu Buhari’s decision not to assent to the electoral bill.
On November 19, the national assembly transmitted the
electoral act amendment bill to the president for assent.
According to the constitution, the president has 30 days
within which he is expected to assent to the bill.
However, according to law, the national assembly can
override Buhari by a two-third vote in a case where no action is taken by the
president on the bill.
In the case of the electoral bill, the deadline for the
presidential assent is December 19.
Speaking on the development on Wednesday at TheCable
Colloquium, Falana said the president is reluctant to assent to the bill due to
pressure from some governors who are worried about certain amendments in the
electoral act.
He said the governors, who are in the ruling party, are
concerned about the provision of electronic voting, which he alleged would make
election manipulation difficult.
“The president is
reluctant to give assent to the bill because the powerful governors in his
party, the ruling party, are saying it is going to be much more expensive for
them to run direct primaries,” he said.
“Therefore, throw away the baby and the bath water. But
where they’re actually going is that those governors have not recovered from
the shock of having electronic vote.
They know manipulation will be reduced to the minimum.
“That’s why they are asking the president to throw away that
bill. They aren’t saying ‘take it back to the national assembly so that the
area of direct primaries can be removed’.
“The bill can be rejected only on one ground. The 2018 bill
was rejected by the president on the ground that it’s too close to the 2019
election. Now, the president may also say signing this bill now may be too
close to the election and might cause confusion.”
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