By Adodo Osewengie
The Nigerian citizens have been left in an hypertensive state on the continued silence of Mr President over his intentions on assenting to the electoral bill.
The presidency is yet to issue a statement to this regard whose onus lies on keeping Nigerians informed of the development in the Villa.
As the expectations of Nigerians on the new electoral bill hangs in the balance, the timeframe for President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the bill has almost elapsed.
While Nigerians earnestly await for Mr President to do a last minute surprise, Buhari had left the country Thursday to the Republic of Turkey to attend the third Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit that is hosted by his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
It would be recalled that on November 19, 2021, the National Assembly transmitted the electoral bill to Mr President seeking his assent after it successfully scaled through the scrutinies of both federal legislative chambers, Green and Red Chambers.
According to 1999 constitution, Section 58 (4), it states that, “Where a bill is presented to the president for assent, he shall within 30 days thereof signify that he assents or that he withholds assent.”
Going by this section of the 1999 constitution with an intuition, the time to assent on the electoral bill by Mr President to transform it into an electoral Act, supposedly expired today, Sunday, December 19, 2021.
Questions some concerned Nigerians deserve answers from the National Assembly is that, “would the leaderships of National Assembly heed the call of Nigerians to recall the electoral bill and jointly pass it if the President fails to sign it”?
Earlier, the Attorney General of the federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, had written a letter to Mr President informing him of the dangers associated with including compulsory direct primaries into the new electoral bill.
He noted that including a compulsory direct primaries for all political parties into the new electoral bill would be catastrophic.
While this new electoral bill has been embraced by a large proportion of the Nigeria people, some political stalwarts are at loggerheads. The federal lawmakers and the governors are at daggers-drawn over this electoral proposition.
Feelers from Nigerians towards the bill show that the people are in full support of it. Remarkably, foremost civil society organizations have consistently appealed to Buhari to append his assent to the bill.
Also, a senior advocate of Nigeria and renowned human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, had faulted the letter written to Buhari by Attorney General of the Federation and senior advocate of Nigeria, Abubakar Malami, noting that the letter is laced with errors according to the law.
According to Daily Trust, Falana said, “the president should ignore misleading advice from unsolicited quarters, particularly potential governorship aspirants.
“The question of political parties amending their constitutions to accommodate direct primary elections does not arise as they are already part and parcel of the electoral law.
The human rights lawyer noted that direct primary election is not new to law as various courts have already upheld Section 87(1), (2) & (3) of the Electoral Act 2010, and this empowers political parties to nominate their candidates either through direct or indirect primaries.
“In any case, it is trite law that in the hierarchy of superiority of regulations, the provisions of the electoral act are higher than the rules or constitutions of political parties,” Falana added.
