. Blame Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act for Members’ Failure at the Primaries

. Ask INEC to Extend Voters Registration by 60 Days

By Ubong Ukpong, Abuja

Angered by the massive lose by their colleagues at the just concluded parties primaries, members of the House of Representatives have taken steps to override President Muhamadu Buhari’s veto on the Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act, 2022 which broaches on statutory delegates.

Consequently, the House would on Thursday introduce a motion to override President Buhari’s inability to sign the amendment to section 84(8) of the Electoral Act which allows statutory delegates to nominate candidates for election when a party adopts indirect mode of primaries.

Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the House gave this indication while ruling on a constitutional point of order raised by Ben Igbakpa (PDP, Delta) on the refusal of Buhari to sign the amended electoral bill.

The House had in May passed the amendment which read: “a political party that adopts the system of indirect primaries for the choice of its candidates shall clearly outline in its constitution and rules the procedure for the democratic election of delegates to vote at the convention, congress or meeting, in addition to statutory delegates already prescribed in the Constitution of the party.”

But, Buhari did not sign the amendment into law, making it impossible for statutory delegates who  include past and serving President, Vice President, State and National Assembly members, Governors and their deputies, Chairmen of Councils, National and State Working Committees of political parties, amongst others to vote at the primaries.

This is considered one of the reasons most of the lawmakers could not win their return tickets to the National Assembly, hence they have no influence on the ad-hoc delegates that voted at the just concluded primaries.

In his point of order, Igbakpa who also lost at the primary election, urged his colleagues and the speaker, Gbajabiamila to veto the president.

He said: “We must wake up as a parliament where we passed our law and we are sure we have done the right thing we should start overriding Mr. President because this is just the beginning. Today, NDDC act is enforced because the parliament which you are part of did it.

“What are we afraid of? Mr president has not committed an offence, what he has done is the rule of law and the constitution and I believe by the time we do our own by veto we would not have committed any offence, we will be working the constitution and the rule of law.

“Mr. Speaker, I implore you as a great leader to please, it is time if we are sure we have done what is right to the Electoral Act 2022, we should rise up, take our pen, collect signatures and by the grace of God override Mr. President and give Nigerians the enabling electoral law that will stand the test of time.”

In his response, Gbajabiamila acknowledged that the constitutional 30 days have elapsed and advised the lawmaker to bring a substantive motion.

In another development, the House of Representatives has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to extend the voters registration deadline by an extra 60 (sixty) days from June 30, 2022, to enable Nigerians register.

The House took this decision, following the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Benjamin Kalu (APC, Abia) at plenary on Wednesday.

Moving the motion, Kalu noted that the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is scheduled to end on 30 June 2022, ahead of the 2023 General Elections.

He noted that the decision to suspend the voters’ registration is in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 which requires INEC to suspend voters’ registration at least 60 days before an election.

The lawmaker said the House is “Aware that in April 2022, INEC declared that about 42% of the voter registrations recorded since the commencement of Continuous Voters Registration on 28 June, 2021 were invalid with about 20 million unclaimed Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) Cognizant of the large numbers of unregistered eligible voters willing to be registered as evidenced by crowd seen at various registration centres resulting in congestion.

“Concerned by reports of shortages of voter registration machines, inadequate manpower and personnel at registration centres which may lead to frustrations among prospective registrants and in some cases, unrest at some registration centres.

“Also aware of calls from concerned Citizens and Civil Societies urging INEC to extend the voters’ registration deadline to accommodate eligible voters desiring to register for their Permanent Voters Cards.

“Further aware that the right to vote is critically important to the health and legitimacy of our democracy, as well as electoral integrity.

“Also cognizant that if nothing is done to improve the shortage of voter registration equipment and extend the deadline for voters registration, millions of Nigerians will be disenfranchised thus jeopardizing the integrity of the 2023 General Elections.”

The House while adopting the motion, mandated the Committee on Electoral Matters to “engage the Independent National Electoral Commission to examine and proffer solutions to the shortage of registration machines and manpower and deploy an additional 30 voter registration machines in each local government area, train and deploy ad-hoc staff to improve the shortage of manpower at registration centres, provide security for the Ad-hoc staff and report back within two weeks.”

“For us to override, I believe the required two thirds and it cannot be by voice votes neither can it be by way of signatures unless of course you gave enough signatures by two-thirds.

“So what I will suggest is that you bring the application, the formal motion notice perhaps tomorrow whenever you are able to do that and we will determine whether or not this House is ready to override or not, I think that’s the proper procedure.

“I appreciate your comments and I believe you are talking about the provision on statutory delegate which Hon. Toby alluded to earlier that’s the provision you are talking about. So you can file your motion hopefully, we will be able to listen to it tomorrow or when we have the time on our calendar, he said.

The deputy minority leader, Toby Okechukwu who also lost his second term bid lamented that: “something is wrong in an environment, in an institution where the two leaders of the senate would have to cross to other parities because of an inherent inclement condition.

“Anything that occasions it, anything that warrants it, if it is our electoral act, if it is our politics, if it is the environment that we operate we need to retune. And like you said, we got to do a better work and we have to fight.

“For me, it is just a battle that is lost, the war is on and we should go ahead to make sure that that law is retooled, made clear and if it requires this parliament to take action to override what has not been signed we should be willing to do so.”