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Electoral Act: Uncertainty trails assent, as President’s aide says “Buhari MAY have signed Electoral Act amendment bill”

Indications emerged on Saturday that President Muhammadu Buhari may have assented to the Electoral Act amendment Bill recently transmitted to him by the National Assembly.

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The amendment is crucial to the participation of statutory delegates at the primaries and national convention of political parties.

They have been excluded from voting and being voted for during the exercises in the previous amendment signed into law by the President.

The statutory delegates of political parties stand the risk of exclusion from the exercises if the President does not sign the amendment Bill by Sunday.

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Since they are required by the Electoral Act to submit the lists of their delegates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seven days to the national convention, the parties can only make do with elected delegates.

This may have been averted going by the assertion of the Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly (Senate), Senator Jide Omoworare, had hinted that the President “should have signed.”

He had been asked to confirm whether or not President Buhari had indeed assented the the latest amendment.

However, to avoid running foul of the Electoral Act should the President not sign the bill, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has now decided that only democratically elected delegates can vote in its primaries and national convention, which it will use the indirect mode to conduct.

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Therefore, only the three ad-hoc delegates elected per ward and one national delegate elected at the local government areas across the country are eligible to vote at the exercises.

The main opposition party made the clarification on Saturday in a statement by Hon. Umar M. Bature, the National Organizing Secretary.

The party also announced the shifting of its primaries to elect State House of Assembly candidates.

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The State Assembly primaries was moved from Saturday, May 21, 2022 to Sunday, May 22, 2022, the same day that of the House of Representatives will take place.

The PDP’s position is not unconnected with the delay by President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the fresh amendment to the Electoral Act into law.

(Vanguard)