The Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has called for a comprehensive review of the Electoral Act to bring it in tandem with emerging electoral realities.
He argued that a piecemeal approach to amending the Electoral Act, targeting isolated issues would not suffice in moving the country’s electoral process forward.
Ekweremadu spoke on the floor of the Senate on Thursday during the debate on a Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act 2010 to give legal impetus to the use of Card Readers for the identification and authentification of voters.
The Bill was being sponsored by Senator Tijani Kaura (APC, Zamfara North).
The Deputy President of the Senate, while stressing the need for synergy between the National Assembly, INEC, and the judiciary to accomplish such comprehensive review of the Electoral Act, noted that if that was done, it would be a veritable legacy to deliver to the people of Nigeria, by the National Assembly.
He said: “Let me commend our colleagues for their thoughtfulness in trying to address some of the lacuna arising from the last election, through this particular Bill being proposed by one of us.
“Mr. President, I am aware that between the last election and now, a lot has happened in relation to our electoral practices, the Electoral Act and indeed, the overall electoral management in Nigeria.
“While I commend this, I will recommend further that if this scales through the Second Reading, it should be domiciled with the Committee on INEC while they are now asked to propose a comprehensive amendment to the Electoral Act, because this is just isolated.
“Let me just mention one of few issues. In the last Senate, we passed an amendment to the Electoral Act, which was never assented to and one of the provisions was meant to address the issue of the application of electronics in voting. This is because under the present Electoral Act, it is forbidden and so we removed that restriction, giving INEC a free hand to determine at the appropriate time, when to use electronic voting. I think this is the time for us to revisit that”.
He added: “In Kogi, for instance, we saw a very unusual situation where a candidate died half way into the election. This was not envisaged either in the Electoral Act or the Constitution. So, a comprehensive review will address this.
“In the Constitution, where a vacancy occurs in the parliament, that vacancy ought to be filled by INEC within 30 days but I have situations where courts give judgments and order that elections should take place within 90 days, clearly outside the 30 days prescribed by the constitution.
“To complicate the matter, INEC sometimes goes beyond the 90 days as ordered by the courts and still hold these elections. So there are so many issues to be resolved in our Electoral Act and if we take them by piecemeal, we are going to miss the point.
“I believe that it is time for us to liaise with INEC, the judiciary, and our appropriate Committees to propose a comprehensive review to our Electoral Act and even those matters relating to elections that are provided for in the constitution. That will be the legacy this present National Assembly will be able to deliver to the people of Nigeria.”
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