Senate amends electoral act, confirms WesternPost’s exclusive story

The Senate has amended the electoral act, allowing the president, National Assembly members, governors and other elected officers to vote at party congresses and primaries.

The amendments took place at the plenary sitting on Tuesday.

This confirms WesternPost’s exclusive story on Monday, that the national assembly was planning to allow “statutory delegates to vote at primaries of parties for the 2023 general elections.

The national assembly had inadvertently omitted that clause from the amended electoral act signed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The House of Representatives is expected to immediately pass its own amendment after which the amended act will be sent to the President for fresh assent.

Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, moved the bill to amend the 2022 Electoral Act No. 13. 

Omo-Agege, in his presentation, said the bill seeks to amend the provision of section 84(8) of the Electoral Act. 

According to him, the provisions of the section “does not provide for the participation of what is generally known as ‘statutory delegates’ in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties.”

“The extant section only clearly provides for the participation of elected delegates in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties held to nominate candidates of political parties. 

“This is an unintended error, and we can only correct it with this amendment now before us”, the Deputy Senate President said.

Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, in his remarks, said that the amendment became imperative in view of the deficiency created by the provision of section 84(8) of the extant Act. 

“The amended Electoral Act of 2022 that we passed this year, has a deficiency that was never intended and that deficiency will deny all statutory delegates in all political parties from participation in congresses and conventions.

“And, therefore, such a major and unintended clause has to be amended before the party primaries starts in the next eight days. This is an emergency legislation, so to speak. 

“Our expectation is that the National Assembly – the two chambers – would finish with the processing of the amendment of this bill, between today (in the Senate) and tomorrow (in the House of Representatives), and then the Executive will do the assent.

“That is so important to enable every statutory delegate to participate in the party primaries right from the beginning that will start on the 18th of May, 2022.

“So, this is an emergency effort to ensure that nobody is denied his or her rightful opportunity as a delegate, especially the statutory delegates, and these are those who are elected.

“These are the President, Vice President, Members of the National Assembly, Governors, Members of the State Houses of Assembly, Chairmen of Council and their Councillors, National Working Committee Members of all the political parties and so on.

“This is a fundamental effort to ensure that we address this within the week, so that by next week, the Electoral Act, 2022 (amended version), will be very salutary for us to start our party primaries,” Lawan said.