The move by the Senate to override President Muhammadu Buhari’s veto on the Electoral Act 2010 Amendment Bill suffered a setback at the Senate on Wednesday.
The National Assembly had passed the bill, which, among others, seeks to reshuffle the sequence of polls during a general election. But Buhari withdrew assent to it.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives re-introduced the bill as part of the process to override the President.
On Wednesday, the second reading had hit a brick wall when senators picked holes in the amendment. Senate thereafter resolved that the new bill be stepped down to another legislative day.
The Senate mandated the Senate Committee on INEC to remove some sections of the bill faulted by the President for violating the constitution while those not faulted should be passed.
Leading the debate for the second reading of the bill, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission, Senator Suleiman Nazif, who sponsored the bill, said the sequence had been amended.
In the first version passed by the National Assembly, a new Section 25 of the Electoral Act states that the sequence of the elections will commence with the Senate and House of Representatives polls, to be followed by governorship and state Houses of Assembly, while presidential poll will come last.
But in his presentation on Wednesday, Nazif said the governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls would now come first, followed by the National Assembly, with the presidential poll coming last.
Most of the senators, who spoke on the bill, opposed it.
The Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the plenary, advised that sections of the bill be split to allow those not opposed to by the President to get his assent.
Ekweremadu said, “What I am thinking in the circumstance is that the President has made some observations in respect of some aspects of that bill. He did not say that the bill was completely useless.
“In order to save those nibble provisions in the Electoral Act, it is important that we remove all those areas the President had objected to and pass the remaining aspects as a separate bill, and send it back to him. Then we can now deal with the issues in a separate bill altogether. We can then defeat it or let it succeed. The first thing is to give up that first bill.”
The advice was unanimously taken.
The Majority Leader, Senator Ahmad Lawan, who is the leader of the majority All Progressives Congress Caucus, expressed strong reservations on the amendment.
Lawan said, “Let me right away state very clearly without mincing words, without being ambiguous, that I am totally, vehemently and comprehensively against this bill. I said it before that I voted against the desire by the National Assembly to determine the sequence of elections. And I said it, I added that I was going to vote against it. And I am doing that today.”
Urging the lawmakers to be practical, the Majority Leader stated that in addition to “unnecessarily incurring avoidable costs in elections,” he warned that the proposed sequence would create a vacuum in government, should an unexpected incident occurs.
“When you leave that (presidential and National Assembly elections) to come later, suppose something happens, where will Nigeria be, without the National Assembly and the President,” he said.
Also, Senator Kabiru Marafa opposed the bill, saying that it was unconstitutional and would be an exercise in futility.
In his submission, Senator Dino Melaye called for a postponement of the second reading.
The lawmakers however chorused, “No.”
Melaye however argued that while the constitution empowered INEC to fix date of elections, the National Assembly reserved the powers of reordering or changing the sequence of elections.
The Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who is the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party Caucus, said the legislature had the powers to change sequence of polls. He however faulted the adjustment done to the order of polls in the new bill.
Akpabio stated that the lawmakers could only legislate on the version rejected by Buhari, if they were to override the President.
The Chief Whip, Senator Sola Adeyeye, also said, “I rise to state categorically that I totally oppose this bill.”
Like Akpabio, Senator Mao Ohuabunwa dismissed the new bill as different from the version passed by the National Assembly and rejected by the President. “I am not aware that we have changed the decision we took,” he stated.
Also, Senator Tayo Alasoadura said the legislature did not have the right to tinker with the sequence of polls, noting that there were more pressing issues affecting the country, like insecurity, which needed the attention of the lawmakers.
“Let this bill die as it has come,” he stated.
Senator Abdullahi Gumel also opposed the bill.
Tags:
News