The Nigerian Senate has again amended the Electoral Act 2022, permitting ‘statutory delegates’, which includes all elected officials to participate and vote in the conventions, congresses, or meetings of political parties.
Those identified as ‘statutory delegates’ include the President, Vice President, Members of the National Assembly, Governors and their deputies, Members of the State Houses of Assembly, Chairmen of Councils, Councillors, and National Working Committee of political parties, amongst others.
The bill to amend the 2022 Electoral Act No. 13 was sponsored by the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, Senator representing Delta Central, who in his motion, said the bill seeks to amend the provision of section 84(8) of the Electoral Act.
Omo-Agege said the provisions of the section “does not provide for the participation of what is generally known as ‘statutory delegates’ in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties.”
According to him, “The extant section only clearly provides for the participation of elected delegates in the conventions, congresses, or meetings of political parties held to nominate candidates of political parties.”
He maintained that the stipulated provision is an “unintended error, and we can only correct it with this amendment now before us.”
Senate President Ahmad Lawan, in his remarks, said that the amendment became important in view of the deficiency created by the provision of Section 84(8) of the extant Act which should be amended before the party primaries start in the next eight days.
“Our expectation is that the National Assembly – the two chambers – would finish with the processing of the amendment of this bill between today (in the Senate) and tomorrow (in the House of Representatives), and then the Executive will do the assent.
“That is so important to enable every statutory delegate to participate in the party primaries right from the beginning that will start on the 18th of May, 2022.
“So, this is an emergency effort to ensure that nobody is denied his or her rightful opportunity as a delegate, especially the statutory delegates, and these are those who are elected.
“These are the President, Vice President, Members of the National Assembly, Governors, Members of the State Houses of Assembly, Chairmen of Council and their Councillors, National Working Committee Members of all the political parties, and so on.
“This is a fundamental effort to ensure that we address this within the week, so that by next week, the Electoral Act, 2022 (amended version), will be very salutary for us to start our party primaries,” Lawan added.
