*Refuses to sign amended Electoral Act 2022 which would have included them
*Provisions of Section 84(8) excludes elected officers from taking part in primaries
*PDP in accordance with Section 84(8) barred such officers from primaries yesterday
*NASS had corrected an ‘unintended error’ which Buhari is yet to assent to
By Okechukwu Jombo
Persons elected into political positions in Nigeria including President Muhammadu Buhari, his Vice, Yemi Osinbajo, Governors, Senators, House of Representative members, State Houses of Assembly members, Local Government Chairmen and Councilors otherwise known as statutory delegates may have been shut out from participating in the ongoing primary election by the various political parties following Buhari’s failure to sign the amended Electoral Act.
These set of elected political officers who are members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP were amongst those yesterday barred from voting in the party primaries that were held across the country.
This is coming on the heels of the refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the amended Electoral Act which contained the inclusion of Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022 as amended by the National Assembly.
It would be recalled that Section 84 (8) of the Electoral Act allows only statutory delegates to participate in political parties’ congresses and conventions.
The statutory delegates include the President, Governors, National Assembly members, State Assembly members, Local Government Chairmen, and Councilors.
But with President Buhari’s failure to sign the amended Electoral Act 2022, they have been shut out by the Act.
PDP had, because of the foregoing, said only three elected ad hoc delegates per ward and one elected national delegate per local government will vote at the primaries and National Convention.
The party made the declaration in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday by its National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature.
Bature stated that the decision was taken in consonance with Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022 as amended by the National Assembly.
The sub-section states that delegates to vote at indirect primaries and the National Convention of political parties to elect candidates for elections shall be those democratically elected for that purpose only.
“Consequently those qualified and eligible to vote as delegates in the forthcoming primaries and National Convention of our great Party, the PDP, are the three ad hoc delegates per ward, elected at the ward congresses.
“Also qualified are one national delegate per local government elected at the local government area congresses,’’ Bature stressed.
Bature also stated that the party’s National Working Committee, NWC and the State Houses of Assembly primaries had been shifted from Saturday, May 21 to Sunday, May 22.
He added that the House of Representatives primaries to elect the PDP House of Representatives candidates would also hold on Sunday, May 22.
Bature advised all PDP aspirants, critical stakeholders, leaders, and teeming members to take note of the changes.
It would be recalled that the Senate had amended the Electoral Act 2022 to allow statutory delegates to participate and vote in party conventions, congresses and meetings.
In an accelerated passage, the lawmakers amended Section 84(8) of the law – which initially allowed only elected delegates of a party to participate in the conventions or other meetings.
The legislation, sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, scaled first, second and third readings at plenary same day.
Leading debate on general principles of the Bill, Mr. Omo-Agege noted that the initial section of the bill was an error on the part of the legislature.
Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act does not provide for the participation of what is generally known as statutory delegates in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties, he explained.
“Section 84(8) provides for the participation of elected delegates in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties held to nominate candidates.
“This was an unintended error and it can only be corrected with this amendment”, he said.
Corroborating his debate, Uche Ekwunife and Sabi Abdullahi said the “error happened inadvertently” and was not the intention of the National Assembly.
The bill was thereafter passed in the Committee of the Whole.
After the passage, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, said the Electoral Act “has a deficiency that was never intended and the deficiency will deny all statutory delegates in all political parties from participating in congresses and conventions.”
He described the bill as emergency legislation and hoped that the National Assembly will finish the processing of the amendment and have the executive assent to it within one week.
The lawmakers in January transmitted a reworked version of the bill to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent, after the latter had rejected it five times – citing reasons that ranged from cost of election, insecurity, drafting errors to proximity to the date of elections.
In the newly signed bill, the lawmakers had addressed an issue raised by the President – the mode of primaries for which political parties will conduct primary elections to elect candidates for political offices.
The Act allows political parties the option of using direct, indirect or consensus modes of primaries. It also allows the use of electronic voting and electronic transmission of results.
