The Nigerian Senate on Thursday passed the controversial Independent National Electoral Commission Act Amendment Bill, albeit without the clause that seeks to reshuffle the order of polls in a general election. According to Punch, the passage was in concurrence with the House of Representatives, which had earlier passed an edited version of the bill. The report says, clauses that made the President to withdraw his assent initially were removed from the amendment.
The Deputy President of the Senate who presided over plenary when the report by the Senate Committee on INEC was adopted said confirmed the removal of the controversial clauses.
“Before we go into the consideration, let me make some quick clarifications. One is that when we passed the Electoral Act earlier in the year, the President returned it with observations.
“From the report we have here, it means that those areas that appear to be controversial or where the President had some issues… No matter how we feel, whether we like it or not, whether we believe in what he said or not, that is not the issue now. What is important now is that to save the other provisions (clauses), our committee resolved to remove those aspects. They may come up some other time but for now, they are not part of this process. Those have been removed to make the rest non-controversial.”
He appealed to the Senators not to call for alteration as the bill had also been passed by the House of Representatives.
