{"id":11689,"date":"2018-09-03T18:30:13","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T18:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=11689"},"modified":"2018-09-03T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T18:30:13","slug":"why-president-buhari-declined-assent-to-electoral-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=11689","title":{"rendered":"Why President Buhari declined assent to Electoral Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Muhammadu Buhari has declined assent to the amended Electoral Bill 2018 due to \u201csome drafting issues\u201d that were\u00a0 not addressed following the prior revisions to the Bill.
\nSen. Ita Enang, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), made this known in a statement in Abuja on Monday.
\nThe presidential aide said that already, the president had communicated his position to the Senate and the House of Representatives on Aug. 30.
\n\u201cMr President is declining assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill due to some drafting issues that\u00a0 remain unaddressed following the prior revisions to the Bill.
\n\u201cMr President invites the Senate and House of Representatives to address these issues as quickly as possible so that he may grant assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill.\u2019\u2019
\nEnang listed the outstanding issues that need to be\u00a0 resolved to include a cross referencing error in the proposed amendment to Section 18 of the Bill.
\n\u201cThe appropriate amendment is to substitute the existing sub-section (2) with the proposed subsection (1A), while the proposed sub-section (1B) is the new sub-section (2A).
\n\u2018\u2019The proposed amendment to include a new Section 87 (14) which stipulates a specific period within which political party primaries are required to be held.
\n\u201cIt has the unintended consequence of leaving INEC with only nine days to collate and compile lists of candidates and political parties as well as manage the primaries of 91 political parties for the various elections.\u201d
\nHe explained that the Electoral Amendment Bill did not amend sections 31, 34 and 85 which stipulated times for the submission of lists of candidates, publication of lists of candidates and notice of convention, congresses for nominating candidates for elections.
\n\u201cFor clarity, may I provide some details of the provisions referenced; Clause 87 (14) states.
\n\u201cThe dates for the primaries shall not be earlier than 120 days and not later than 90 days before the date of elections to the offices.
\n\u201cThe Electoral Act 2010 referred to herein states in Section 31:\u00a0that every Political Party shall not later than 60 days before the date appointed for a\u00a0general election, submit to the commission the list of candidates the party proposes to sponsor at the elections.
\n\u201cSection 34: That the Commission shall at least 30 days before the day of the election publish a statement of the full names and addresses of all candidates standing nominated.
\n\u201cSection 85 (1):That a Political Party shall give the Commission at least 21 days notice of any convention, congress etc., for electing members of its executive committees or nominating candidates for any of the elective offices.\u2019\u2019
\nAccording to him, for the avoidance of doubt, neither the Constitution nor any written law allows a President or a Governor to whom a bill is forwarded by the legislature to edit, correct, amend or in any manner alter the provisions of any such bill to reflect appropriate intent before assenting to same.
\n\u201cHe is to assent in the manner it is or to withhold assent.
\nHe further disclosed that Buhari had communicated his action to the National Assembly on the National Agricultural Seeds Council Bill, 2018 and the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2017, earlier transmitted to him.
\nThe president\u2019s actions on the Chartered Institute of Entrepreneurship (Establishment) Bill, 2018, and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (Amendment) Bill, 2017, were also communicated to both chambers of the assembly.
\nOthers are the Subsidiary Legislation (Legislative Scrutiny) Bill, 2018; National Institute of Hospitality and Tourism (Establishment) Bill, 2018, and National Research and Innovation Council (Establishment) Bill, 2017.
\nBy NAN<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Muhammadu Buhari has declined assent to the amended Electoral Bill 2018 due to \u201csome drafting issues\u201d that were\u00a0 not addressed following the prior revisions to the Bill. Sen. Ita Enang, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), made this known in a statement in Abuja on Monday. The presidential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":11363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}