Again, the waiting game and suspense continue as President Muhammadu Buhari is believed to have postponed the signing of the re-worked Electoral Act till Friday, February 25.
According to the source, the new date will be honoured by the President.
This comes at a time when President Buhari is presiding over the Federal Executive Council meeting at the State House in Abuja.
Stakeholders, including civil society organizations have continued to call for the signing of the document, considered as capable of instilling confidence and credibility into the electoral system.
For instance, a Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) protested yesterday in Abuja to compel President Buhari to sign the reworked Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
The placard-wielding protesters converged at the Unity Fountain in their numbers chanting anti-government songs.
Some of the inscriptions on their placards read: ‘Buhari Sign Electoral Bill Now, Prevent Elections Rigging’, ‘The Bill Protects the Voting Rights of PWDS’, ‘Buhari Save Our Democracy’ among others.
Armed policemen were deployed to the Unity Fountain, while the convoy of joint task force was sighted at the Eagle Square mobilising for operation.
Speaking briefly before the protesters processed towards the National Assembly, Convener of Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, Ene Obi, alleged that the delay by the present administration in assenting to the bill was a conspiracy against the Nigerian people and a plot to rig coming elections.
Obi appealed to the president, as the father of the nation, to sign the bill, as more than 400 members of the National Assembly put in effort to pass the bill.
Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said the bill “is important for several reasons” because it would help in guaranteeing an inclusive and credible electoral process.
According to Itodo, if the reworked bill is signed into law, INEC will have all the money it requires for the conduct of elections.
Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) and Chair, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Auwal Rafsanjani, said that Nigerians were tired of electoral manipulations.
Rafsanjani added that Nigerians were also tired of the absence of electoral integrity; hence they wanted electoral inclusion of women.
He noted that all these would be made possible by the assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill 2022. Executive Director of Inclusive Friends Association (IFA), Grace Jerry, said the new electoral bill would give the more than 30 million community of Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) access to the electoral process.
The coalition, therefore, recommended that Buhari should sign the bill into law on or before March 1, 2022.
FOR the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), President Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), are delaying the signing of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill to frustrate the 2023 general elections.
The opposition party claimed that “the current anti-people scheme against the Electoral Act Amendment Bill by the APC administration is heightening apprehensions across the country of furtive plots by APC leaders to orchestrate a constitutional impasse that can railroad our democracy into an emergency tenure elongation, induced election postponement, self-succession or worst still an interim government situation.”
National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Debo Ologunagba, at a press briefing in Abuja on Monday noted that the growing tension concerning the Electoral Act Amendment Bill “calls for concern, as it has the capacity to spawn widespread restiveness” with consequential violence, bloodletting and humanitarian crisis in the country that may affect the entire West Africa, Europe, America and other parts of the world, if not addressed.
However, Femi Adesina, senior special adviser on Media and Publicity to President Buhari told the bewildered Nigerians and the world on Monday that the signing of the document by the president is a matter of hours.
