Political parties, NASS agree to pass new Electoral Act before July ends – IPAC

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

The Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) yesterday disclosed that registered political parties and the leadership of the National Assembly have agreed that the 2010 Electoral Act (Amendment) must be passed into law before the end of July.

The National chairman of IPAC, Leornad Nzenwa, who disclosed this yesteryear in Abuja during a press briefing, said when the Act is eventually signed into law, it will not take long time for the President to sign it into law, adding that the delay was to carry everyone along in the process.

Speaking also on the State of the nation, the IPAC boss said it is obvious that the state of the nation is bad, adding that though it is still redeemable if political leaders do things properly and right.

“There is a cloud of uncertainty across the country. If we are sincere to ourselves, can we wholeheartedly exclaim that we have a beautiful country, the one we used to know, now? Can we say heartily that we are giant of Africa, as euphemistically echoed in the past. We seem to have lost the Nigeria we used to know. Everything has gone to the dogs.

“Everybody seems to have taken their own path. Herdsmen are killing farmers, kidnappers are invading our homes, our schools are no more safe for learning, bandits are terrorising everyone of us and terrorists with all sort of names are raiding our villages. We no longer sleep with our eyes closed!

“The level of killings that have been perpetrated by criminal elements in this country in so short a period as this is much. Sadly, Nigeria is ranked the third most unsafe place to live on earth.

“How did we get to this horrible point? A sore point where lives do not matter anymore? Where our laws do not make any meaning to all of us? How did we get to this consciousness-less verge?

Where calls for secession have become stringent and deafening? Where we have non-state actors dethroning state actors? Where our farmers can no longer go to their farms?

“Where we have bred a nation of outlaws, an army of anarchists, and gangs of cannibals. I am tempted to conclude, and say that we are enmeshed in buckets of wicked problems which has overwhelmed us all”, he said.

However, the Council commend President Muhammadu Buhari for sanctioning the remittance of allocation directly to the third tier of government which is closer to the people and demanding that the Local Government chairmen judiciously utilize the funds.

While mourning with Nigerians over the death of the former chief of Army Staff, Ibrahim Attahiru, IPAC enjoined President Buhari to rijig Nigerias’ security architecture to work for final decapitation of terrorists and other criminal elements troubling the country.

The Council condemned also the incessant burning of INEC and Nigerian Police facilities in some parts of the country and demanded a stop to this arson against the country, just as it called on Security agents to identify and deal decisively with the criminal elements that are perpetrating the burning of national assets.

Further to this, it called on INEC to redouble its effort as much is expected from them ahead of the 6th November 2021 Anambra State gubernatorial election, saying it is a litmus test ahead of Ekiti and Osun Gubernatorial elections in 2022 and the 2023 general election.