Election Sequence: Senators disagree on proposed bill

Nigerian Senate

Senators on Wednesday expressed divergent views on the provisions of the Electoral Act Bill as it relates to sequence of elections.

The senators took turns to speak on the reintroduced bill which was sponsored by Suleiman Nazif (APC, Bauchi North).

In the new bill, the proposed election sequence seeks to make the governorship election come first, followed by that of state Houses of Assembly and National Assembly and then Presidential election last.

The National Assembly Conference Committee on Electoral Act (amendment) Bill had recently adopted a reordered sequence of the 2019 general elections, putting the Presidential election last.

This has initiated a series of controversies in the polity with some senators of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) saying it was targeted at President Muhammadu Buhari, to prevent his re-election.

Both chambers of the National Assembly, though dominated by the APC, amended the order of the election. The proposed sequence of elections would make the National Assembly election take place first 2019, followed by governorship and state Houses of Assembly, and Presidential as last.

This is against the sequence rolled out by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) late 2017, which put Presidential and National Assembly elections first and governorship and state assembly following.

President Buhari on March 13 refused assent to the bill, after it was forwarded to his office. He had said the amendments if allowed to pass will violate parts of the constitution.

Shortly after the bill was refused by the president, the Federal High Court restrained the Senate from proceeding with further actions on the matter.

The restraining order followed an application by counsel to the Accord Party, Wole Olanipekun, who asked the court to stop the lawmakers from tampering with the electoral act.

The court later proceeded with the substantive application.

While reading out the provisions of the bill, Mr Nazif explained that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended does not specifically present a sequence for which elections into the respective offices are to be conducted.

“Essentially, this bill seeks to provide elections taken in the following sequence; Governorship elections, state Houses of Assembly and National Assembly elections, Presidential elections.

“The drafters of this portion of the Constitution did not intend that this would be a sequence of the conduct of elections into elective offices but merely missed the perspective, the respective offices that INEC is empowered to exercise their responsibilities. This raises a lot of concern of possible manipulations of the outcome of results of elections, hence the importance of this bill,” he said, adding that the proposed sequence does not in any way infringe or violate any provision of the constitution.

He said the bill will not limit the discretion of INEC to perform functions as provided by law.

“Elections to each chamber of the National Assembly shall be held on a date to be appointed by INEC in accordance to the electoral act. It is the constitutional responsibility of the National Assembly after due consultation with their President to determine the sequence that bests suits the yearnings and aspirations of majority of the electorates in Nigeria.

“This is also important so as not to give a candid and undue advantage in any election to avoid any situation where a certain candidate who may ordinarily not win an election would rest on the floor of victory of the superior,” he added.

The Senate Leader, Ahmad Lawan (APC, Yobe North), while opposing the bill, reminded the Senate that he earlier voted against the desire of the National Assembly to determine the sequence of elections and ”will always vote against it”.

“In addition to unnecessarily incurring an avoidable cost in elections, the National Assembly, the federal government, particularly the legislature here, this chamber and that one in the House should be able to be in place at any time to legislate for the good governance of this country,” he said.

Mr Lawan stated that the right thing to do is not to legislate on the sequence but to support INEC to conduct very free, fair and transparent elections.

“I want to advice we stick with what we practiced in 2015. We appropriate what INEC needs to ensure that this country does not go into any crisis,” he said.

Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West), however, supported the bill, as he explained that if the National Assembly has the power to enact INEC as an institution, ”it should also have our powers to moderate it’s activities without tempering with dates”.

“While the constitution empowers INEC to only fix dates for election, the power for order and sequence of election is within the constitutional mandate of the National Assembly.”

He thereafter, asked that second reading of the bill be stepped down and taken another day to enable the sponsor do more research.

The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, while urging his colleagues to be ”on the same page”, reminded the Senate of why President Muhammadu Buhari rejected the bill the first time.

“We passed that bill and sent it to the President. The president returned that bill with some observations. One of the observations was in respect of the order of the election. He also made observations regarding the local government election.

“What I think is, the president has made observations in some parts of the bill. He did not say the bill we passed was entirely useless.

“It is therefore important that we remove all those areas that the president had objected to and pass the remaining items as a separate bill and send it back to him,” he suggested.

He pleaded with the Senate Committee on INEC to to work on the rejected part(s) of the initial bill as the Senate worked on the other part.

The senate unanimously agreed to Mr Ekweremadu’s suggestion.