The Senate, on Tuesday, hurriedly amended the 2022 Electoral Act, No. 13, to allow the President, Vice President, and other elected government functionaries to participate and vote in conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties.
It also empowered both Chambers of the National Assembly two days to finish work on the bill before assent by President Muhammadu Buhari.
During plenary,President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan,explained that “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.”
He said the amendment became imperative in view of the deficiency created by the provision of section 84(8) of the extant Act.
He added:“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.
He also emphasized the import of the amendment, adding that it enables “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 Councilors, 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.”
The amendment if assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, will extend further, same rights to members of the National Assembly, Governors and their deputies, Members of the State Houses of Assembly, Chairmen of Councils, Councilors and members of National Working Committee of political parties.
Categorizing those affected as ‘statutory delegates,’ the Bill was sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege (Delta Central).
It also scaled first, second and third readings at plenary, and was passed by the chamber after consideration by the committee.
In his argument, the sponsor of the bill,Senator Omo-Agege,said that the bill seeks to amend the provision of section 84(8) of the Electoral Act.
He explained that 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.