Buhari May Assent To Electoral Act Amendment Bill This Week

According to Senate President Ahmed Lawan, there are critical predictors that President Muhammadu Buhari would sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill this week.

Following their return of legislative duties after the Christmas break, Lawan met with President Buhari at the State House in Abuja on Tuesday and affirmed that the disputed Electoral Act Amendment Bill will be brought for discussions on the National Assembly floor.

Because of the direct primary clause, the President had refused to sign the Electoral Amendment bill. The Executive’s decision to send the bill back to the legislature was based solely on that factor.

When quizzed when the National Assembly plans to adopt the bill after removing the primary clause and resubmitting it to the president, he said he didn’t know. Lawan said, “Well, I smile because that again, by the grace of God tomorrow both chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives will pass the bill. And I hope that before the end of the week, the bill could be brought back to Mr. President for his assent.

“But one thing I’m sure by the grace of God is we are passing the bill, the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2010, tomorrow Wednesday the 19th in both chambers, and we are happy that at the end of the day, we have been able to narrow down our differences and arrive at the very patriotic resolution that our country must have a new electoral law that will guide the 2023 general elections in the country, and Nigeria would have everything to benefit from this law.

“For us in the ninth assembly, the Electoral Act amendment bill is one of our major legislative agendas that we wanted to deal with, and to the glory of God Almighty, by tomorrow, we will be able to pass that bill to Mr. President to assent to it. I hope that the cleaning process will not take more than a day. But if it does, then it has to be early next week. But I’m very optimistic that there is not much to clean up because normally, when we pass a bill like this, it goes to the legislative drafting unit of the National Assembly.

“So what you have in the National Assembly, as passed, is not the final document that comes to the President. And I know that many people were saying there were so many flaws in the bill that was brought to Mr. President, maybe what they had was the bill passed in the Senate or in the House, not the one that was cleaned up, the final document that was cleaned up, because even us we didn’t have that document, we sign it up but I appreciate the efforts of all Nigerians in taking interest in what we do, and even participating by way of looking for what is right and what is not when we pass our bills, or in terms of legislative activities, generally.