President Muhummadu Buhari has reportedly returned the Electoral Act Amendment Bill back to the National Assembly, citing many reasons.
President Buhari reportedly wrote leaders of the two chambers of the National Assembly after refusing to sign the bill into law because of the huge cost of conducting direct primaries among other reasons.
However, the Nigerian President has up till December 19 to sign the bill into law. If he refuses assent, the lawmakers with two-thirds majority can veto the president and pass the bill into law.
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Spokesperson of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu said that the report in some sections of the media that President Buhari had rejected and sent back the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill to the National Assembly was ‘false’.
At best, Kalu said the report was the creation of some people “trying to increase their lobbying skills to weaken the heart of so many people that believe in the advocacy” of direct primaries.
It was reported, on Thursday, that President Buhari had rejected having reportedly returned the document back to the lawmakers.
Briefing journalists on the issue, Hon. Kalu said there was no communication from President Buhari to suggest that the bill had been rejected and returned to the National Assembly.
According to him, “I have been confronted by this issue left, right and centre since that publication came out till now but I want to tell you that if President Buhari sent a communications to the House of Representatives, the spokesperson of the House should be one of the first to know. And I can tell you with every audacity that there’s no communication from Mr. President to that effect.
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“Any insinuation is a figment of imagination of those who are trying to increase their lobbying skills to weaken the heart of so many people that believe in this advocacy, to begin to look the other way, thinking Mr. President has turned the other way.
“In lobbying, so many tools are involved. Not too long ago it was reported that the cost of running direct primaries is so much. We agree democracy is expensive but the question you should ask yourself is why was that thrown up beyond other issues? It was a lobbying skill.
“If you are a disciple of democracy, like I am and so many other parliamentarians, you will believe that democracy in itself is not cheap, if it was cheap you wouldn’t be having three arms of government.
“So, do we drop democracy because it’s not cheap? The answer is no because of the reward that comes with it. So we can’t sacrifice the beauty of democracy on the altar of cost. It might be costly but for democracy, it’s not expensive.”
Kalu also said that the House had tentatively slated December 14 to pass the N16.3 trillion 2022 Appropriation Bill into law, adding that the Finance Bill was being given serious consideration.
“Let’s be hopeful, most of the committees have sent in their reports about what they have done so far with the various ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs.
“The Appropriation Committee is busy going through the reports to make sure the envelope for every MDAs is in order with what has been provided for them.
“The committee is working overtime to ensure this is done between now and the 14th.
‘’That date is the day we are looking at laying the report; we are also looking at winding down possibly on the 16th for the Christmas holidays.
