The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the National Assembly should be held responsible for the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to withhold assent to the 2018 Electoral Amendment Bill, as the Commission submitted its recommendations to the lawmakers in 2016.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner for Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Mike Igini who stated this on Friday in an interview with Alexander Okere of Punch Newspaper wondered why the lawmakers delayed the Bill till 2018. According to him
"This issue should be handled between both arms of government, given that we have done the needful since 2016 when the commission made submissions to the parliament.
Some of us (stakeholders) have spoken on the need to act on time on this subject matter to avoid the scenario of 2015. Unfortunately, this is where we are today talking about controversy when we are now counting days to the 2019 elections.
"The controversy has now taken a partisan dimension of ‘they versus us,’ cherry-picking, instead of a common mission of strengthening the electoral system for the sustenance of our democracy. However, issues around elections are not peculiar to Nigeria. Around the world, electoral reforms always have proponents and opponents but the usual expectation is for political leaders to put national interest above all other interests."
On whether INEC can conduct a credible poll without a new body of law, he said such fears were unfounded as the constitution had given INEC the power to organize elections using its determined guidelines.
"Any apocalyptic projection of doom about the 2019 elections should be more about the violence that politicians are planning to use to undermine the electoral process, through the recruitment of thugs, importation of fake army and police uniforms (some of which have been intercepted by the Customs) and the various security reports of arms build-up by politicians.
"The absence of a new Electoral Act should not be a basis for not having credible elections in 2019, because the constitution donated to INEC, to the exclusion of any other body under Paragragh 15 of the Third Schedule, the power to “organise, undertake and supervise” the conduct of elections into certain offices listed in the constitution. Specifically, Section 52(2) of the 2015 amendments says that, “voting in an election, under this Act, shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the lndependent National Electoral Commission.”
"What else do we really need again, at least for now? Even without this amendment to the Electoral Act, the constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons. And the provision of Section 160 of the constitution, which the Electoral Act has now adopted, is clear on the powers given to INEC to make its own rules and determine the procedure to be used in the conduct of an election," he added.
