Statutory delegates will participate in parties’ primaries next year – Akpabio

By Haruna Salami

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio has given strong indication Monday that the 2022 Electoral Act will be amended for inclusion of statutory delegates in political parties’ primaries, slated for next year ahead of 2027 general election.

 Akpabio disclosed this in Abuja while having in audience the National leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) who he admonished to weed out quacks from the legal profession.

 According to him  omission of statutory delegates from primaries of political parties in the 2022 Electoral Act was a costly mistake that must be corrected before the next round of general elections.

  He said there were defects in the last Electoral Act that was amended. So, we want to cure some of the defects that we found in our electoral system. I can tell you one.

“Without any particular intention of the Parliament, in the 2023 elections and the 2022 primaries, we inadvertently, created what I may call super-delegates.

 “Because all the statutory delegates, starting from the President, the Vice President, the Governors, Deputy Governors, the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker, Deputy Speaker, members of Parliament, National, Sub-National, Chairman of Councils, and all, were omitted as delegates .

 “These are areas that we think we can look at in order to make our democracy  more participatory. Because democracy is all about number.

“We ended up at a national level bringing out the President, we had about 2,380, because we had 3,000 people in each of the local government areas, was omitted from the amendment it meant that all others unless you contested to be an ad hoc delegate you are not welcome at the primaries to select flag bearers of the legislative houses governorship and then of course flag bearer of the presidential conventions in all the political parties across the country .

“We shall  also look at the powers that we gave to INEC because at the time it looked as if INEC was the last arbiter as to who decides who is a candidate and not the political parties,  so we now have to look up to INEC to decide whether to take the name or not to take the name and I believe strongly that the political parties should have the power to select its candidates that will best serve its manifestos and has the integrity to represent its people and has a track record of performance to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people so these are areas that we are looking at in the Electoral Act”.