By Joseph Edegbo
Civil society organisations (CSOs) have reiterated their call on President Buhari to sign the electoral bill transmitted to him by the National Assembly bureaucracy on time if the dates of elections are to remain unchanged, warning that “time is running out”. This is just less than 48 hours for the President to do the needful.
According to the CSOs, if the president signs the bill on time, it will help the INEC to issue guidelines for the 2023 general elections and make all the necessary preparations as required by the new law.
The CSOs urging Buhari to sign the bill are: Yiaga Africa, International Press Centre (IPC), Centre for Citizens with Disability (CCD), The Albino Foundation, CLEEN Foundation, Institute for Media and Society (IMS) and Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF).
Others are: Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), Partners for Electoral Reform (PER), Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC), Nigeria Network of Non-Governmental Organisations (NNNGO) and Inclusive Friends Association (IFA).
Speaking to one of the national dalies , the executive director, Yiaga Africa Samson Itodo said the CSOs are happy the errors they found in the bill earlier rejected by Buhari had been corrected.
Itodo also pointed out that the issues raised by the president had also been addressed, and now it is for him to sign the bill on time to enable smooth preparations for the 2023 general elections.
“The National Assembly should be commended for accelerating the entire process of the review. We are glad that they reworked the bill and the drafting errors might have been resolved. We hope that there are no errors and there are no cross-referencing gaps.
“Now that it has been transmitted, we hope that the president will assent to the bill on time because we are running out of time. All the issues that he raised have been addressed and we expect him to sign the bill within one week.
“The law said that within 360 days to election, INEC is required to issue the notice of election. We don’t want the president to waste any further time because this is a critical moment for democracy,” Itodo added.
Meanwhile, the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), which raised a fresh concern over plans to scuttle the signing of the 2022 electoral act amendment bill, said President Buhari must side with the majority of Nigerians.
IPAC chairman, Yabagi Sani, said like most enlightened Nigerians, they had expected that following the withholding of assent by the president when the Bill was first transmitted to him by lawmakers, the reworked version submitted afterwards would have been such that possible areas of conflicts were avoided.
The umbrella body of all political parties said it is loath to buy into the opinion held in many quarters that all the controversies over the electoral bill might have been a deliberate and conscious conspiracy by powerful interests in the Executive and the Legislature who are averse to positive changes that make it difficult for them to continue in their old game of manipulating the electoral process.
“If that is the case, all democrats and patriotic Nigerians owe it a duty to stand up against these retrogressive forces who are bent on retarding the progress of our hard-won democracy.
“IPAC is calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to go ahead and give his assent to the Bill as presently transmitted by the National Assembly.
“This will be demonstrating his avowed commitment to bequeathing a culture of transparent and credible elections to the country. The Bill can afterwards be revisited and amended again if compelling reasons emerge to do so, either before or after the 2023 elections.
“In other words, IPAC is of the standpoint that under no circumstances or pretext must we throw away the grains with the chaff which will be the case if the Electoral Act, for reasons of some clauses in it, is thrown away in its entirety,” Sani added.
INEC had earlier said that it could not issue guidelines for the 2023 general elections if the electoral legal framework was not ready.
Even though the commission could not respond to inquiry yesterday, the INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, had said that the commission would not release the 2023 general elections timetable until the Electoral Act Amendment Bill was signed into law.
He made the comment during a consultative meeting with political parties in Abuja last month
“As soon as it is signed into law, the commission will quickly release the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election based on the new law,” Yakubu told heads of political parties during a meeting on January 18, 2022.
Reports say INEC requires to issue a notice of election not later than 360 days before the day appointed for an election, if Buhari acts on the bill after February 22, 2022, INEC may have no option than to postpone the 2023 presidential election to a later date.
Source : Leadership Newspaper