Legal luminary, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa SAN, has urged the National Assembly to veto the Electoral Act Amendment Bill if President Muhammadu Buhari refuses to sign it.
Recall that President Buhari is yet to assent the Bill as passed to him from the parliament. The President was believed to be under intense pressure not to assent the bill.
But in a statement issued by Adegboruwa, he said the failure of the president to assent the bill before travelling for a summit in Turkey was truncating the reforms encapsulated in the bill.
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“The president did not assent before he traveled to Turkey, thus truncating the reforms encapsulated in that historic bill,” the lawyer said.
“There are many innovative provisions in the bill that make it attractive as a tool to oil our democratic experiment, especially the issues of electronic transmission of election results and direct primaries for the political parties.
“From the events monitored on the floor of the National Assembly and indeed the public hearings conducted, it is clear that Nigerians prefer that results of elections be transmitted electronically by INEC in order to avoid the recurring decimal of manipulation and rigging.
“In the same vein, direct primaries for the choice of candidates of political parties will eliminate the hydra-headed issues of godfatherism and the imposition of candidates.
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“Under and by virtue of section 58 (5) of the 1999 constitution, where the president withholds his assent and a bill is again passed by each house by two-thirds majority, the bill shall become law and the assent of the president shall not be required.
He urged the National Assembly to, in the national interest, invoke its constitutional powers to pass the Electoral Bill. He believed that passing the bill would save te nation’s democracy from imminent collapse.