By Christiana Ekpa
Angered by the lose of their colleagues at the just concluded primary election, members of the House of Representatives have taken steps to override President Muhamadu Buhari’s veto, concerning Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act, 2022 which broaches on statutory delegates.
Consequently, the House will on Thursday introduce a motion to override President Buhari’s inability to sign the amendment to section 84(8) of the Electoral Act which allows statutory delegates to nominate candidates for election when a party adopts indirect mode of primaries.
Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the House gave this indication while ruling on a constitutional point of order raised by Ben Igbakpa (PDP, Delta) on the refusal of Buhari to sign the amended electoral bill.
The House had in May passed the amendment which read: “a political party that adopts the system of indirect primaries for the choice of its candidates shall clearly outline in its constitution and rules the procedure for the democratic election of delegates to vote at the convention, congress or meeting, in addition to statutory delegates already prescribed in the Constitution of the party.”
But, Buhari did not sign the amendment into law, making it impossible for statutory delegates who include past and serving President, Vice President, State and National Assembly members, Governors and their deputies, Chairmen of Councils, National and State Working Committees of political parties, amongst others to vote at the primaries.
This is considered one of the reasons most of the lawmakers could not win their return tickets to the National Assembly, hence they have no influence on the ad-hoc delegates that voted at the just concluded primaries.
In his point of order, Igbakpa who also lost at the primary election, urged his colleagues and the speaker, Gbajabiamila to veto the president.
He said: “We must wake up as a parliament where we passed our law and we are sure we have done the right thing we should start overriding Mr. President because this is just the beginning. Today, NDDC act is enforced because the parliament which you are part of did it.
“What are we afraid of? Mr president has not committed an offence, what he has done is the rule of law and the constitution and I believe by the time we do our own by veto we would not have committed any offence, we will be working the constitution and the rule of law.
“Mr speaker, I implore you as a great leader to please, it is time if we are sure we have done what is right to the Electoral Act 2022, we should rise up, take our pen, collect signatures and by the grace of God override Mr. President and give Nigerians the enabling electoral law that will stand the test of time.”
In his response, Gbajabiamila acknowledged that the constuttional 30 days have elapsed and advised the lawmaker to bring a substantive motion.
“For us to override, I believe the required two thirds and it cannot be by voice votes neither can it be by way of signatures unless of course you gave enough signatures by two-thirds.
“So what I will suggest is that you bring the application, the formal motion notice perhaps tomorrow whenever you are able to do that and we will determine whether or not this House is ready to override or not, I think that’s the proper procedure.
“I appreciate your comments and I believe you are talking about the provision on statutory delegate which Hon. Toby alluded to earlier that’s the provision you are talking about. So you can file your motion hopefully, we will be able to listen to it tomorrow or when we have the time on our calendar, he said.
Earlier, deputy minority leader, Toby Okechukwu who also lost his second term bid lamentated that: “something is wrong in an environment, in an institution where the two leaders of the senate would have to cross to other parities because of an inherent inclement condition.
“Anything that occasions it, anything that warrants it, if it is our electoral act, if it is our politics, if it is the environment that we operate we need to retune. And like you said, we got to do a better work and we have to fight.
“For me, it is just a battle that is lost, the war is on and we should go ahead to make sure that that law is retooled, made clear and if it requires this parliament to take action to override what has not been signed we should be willing to do so.”
