Electoral Bill: Is There a Conspiracy?

POLITICAL NOTES

There’s one incontrovertible truth about President Muhammadu Buhari’s rejection of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill and it is the fact that you can hardly fault his grounds for withholding assent, especially, as it concerns direct primaries imposed on political parties by the National Assembly.

Even the most unlikely of President Buhari’s critics, Reverend Father Mathew Kukah, a few days back, admitted that the president was right by withholding assent. The freewill to mode of selection of candidates in an election is purely a political party’s affair and not what anyone should impose on them under the guise of electoral reform. It’s democratic for the parties to so decide.

But, much as Buhari was right on this one issue, there are several other sections in the bill that the country cannot afford to die with the rejection of direct primaries. This is why the legislature must not let Buhari’s withholding of assent mark the death of the entire bill. There’s nothing difficult in reviewing the contentious sections and sending it back in collective interest for the president to sign.

It is important to note that the opposition already has a detestable feeling about the entire process up until its rejection by the president. They claimed it was all a plan, adding that the real target was the clause that dealt with electronic transmission of result. But because it’s hard to frontally challenge that, the conspiracy was hatched around direct primaries just to have the entire bill killed. The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, said as much.

Even more embarrassing are the Civil Society Organisations that had since been appealing to the president to assent to the bill and even expressed disappointment when Buhari withheld assent, only to start identifying cross-referencing errors after. So, all the while that they were pushing for Buhari to sign it, they did not critically look at the bill to identify the errors? The president’s refusal to assent to the bill might as well be a blessing in disguise.

Except there’s a conspiracy, as truly pointed out by the opposition and some other interested parties, the National Assembly must not let the whole of the entire bill die just, because Buhari withheld assent over direct primaries. It’s important to learn from the 2006 experience, when the Ken Nnamani Senate leadership threw out an entire amendment to the constitution on account of alleged third term by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. That experience is worthy of note and shouldn’t go to waste at this material time.