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The coalition of Civil Society Organisations have given President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the National Assembly Friday, January 21, 2022 deadline to conclude the amendment of the electoral bill processes and assent same.
The CSOs were drawn from Yiaga Africa, International Press Centre, Centre for Citizens with Disability, The Albino Foundation, CLEEN Foundation, Institute for Media and Society, Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism among others.
They implored the National Assembly ensure proper scrutiny of the bill to correct draft errors and cross referencing gaps noticed in it.
At a joint press conference in Abuja,Lanre Arogundade of Imternational Press Centre and Ezenwa Nwagwu of Yiaga Africa also urged President Buhari to upon receipt of the re-transmitted bill provide his assent within a week.
They spoke on the debate over direct primaries, and emphasized the need to expunge the clause without delay so that the law can take effect especially with only 398 days left for the next general election to begin.
They urged the National Assembly to feature the electoral amendment as a priority issue on the order paper for Tuesday.
“In deference to the national and public interest, the Senate and the House of Representatives should upon resumption on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 take legislative action at its first sitting to conclude the process and re-transmit the bill to President Buhari by Friday, January 21, 2022,” they stated .
They maintained that the bill,when assented to will facilitate early release of funds for INEC, inclusion of over 31million people with disabilities in the electoral process, legalising electronic accreditation of voters, check incidence of overvoting, stop declaration of results under duress, electronic transmission of results among other benefits.
They added that further delay to the conclusion of the electoral amendment process would be inimical to the preparations for Ekiti, Osun elections as the opportunity to test the operability of the new legislation and its latent innovations would be lost if the amendment process remains inconclusive.
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