Elder statesman and Chairman of the Northern Elders’ Council (NEC), Alhaji Tanko Yakasai has condemned the refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the Electoral Act Amendment bill.
Buhari had for the third time withheld his assent to the bill.
Buhari in a letter transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara dated December 6, 2018, published by his Personal Assistant on Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, on Saturday via Twitter, explained that passing the bill could cause “some uncertainty about the applicable legislation to govern the process.”
The elder statesmen, speaking on the development, urged the National Assembly to take up the challenge of overriding President Buhari.
Yakassai told ThisDay: “I hope members of the National Assembly will summon the courage to override the veto of the president so that everybody will be elected on his own merit.
“I don’t know why the president wants to depend on the merit of others to get to power. He can get to power on his own merit and others can get to power on their own merit.
“I did not support the position of the president because I think it is important that in this country, every person who is contesting election, the mandate he gets is his own mandate.
“Electing president along with members of the National Assembly has not clearly defined who has the mandate.
“In my opinion, a member, who is elected on his own, the electorate gave him the mandate to himself, not to anybody.
“When anyone is contesting as a president or a governor, he should get his own mandate separately so that when it comes to the question of performance, people will know who has performed, according to the mandate given to him or who has not performed. But if you join two people with the same mandate, then you are neither here nor there. So, that is the reason why I am not in support of the position of the president.”
Meanwhile, the refusal of President Buhari to sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill has attracted a lot of criticisms from many quarters, including the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, amongst others.
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