Party Primaries: Senate Amends Electoral Act to allow Buhari, Lawmakers, others Vote

The Senate, has amended the Electoral Act, 2022, to pave way for ‘statutory delegates’ – all those elected – to participate and vote in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties.

In what appears to be a major oversight in the new electoral act, elected party leaders such as the President, National Assembly members, Governors would have been shut out from voting during party primaries.

The Electoral Act as passed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari made provision for only elected delegates, excluding those often referred to as “statutory delegates’.

The amendment came after expeditious consideration of a bill which scaled first, second and third readings, respectively, and was passed during plenary by the chamber after consideration by the Committee of the Whole. 

In his contribution to the debate, Leader of the Senate, Abubakar Yahaya said the proposed amendment  was to “correct an unintended error” of excluding ‘statutory delegates’ from participating in their political parties conventions, congresses and meetings.

The error if not detected and amended could prevent 
“Statutory delegates’ like President Muhammadu Buhari, his Vice, Yemi Osinbajo, President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan and other members of the National Assembly from participating in their respective party primaries.

Others that would have been excluded include State Governors, and National Working Committee (NWC) members of the various political parties.

Aware of the far reaching consequences, the Senate quickly moved to amended Section 84 of the Principal Act by deleting the existing subsection (8) and inserting a new subsection (8) after subsection (7) to read as follows:

“A political party that adopts the system of indirect primaries for the choice of its candidate 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”.

With this amendment by Senate, the House of Representatives is expected to within the week work on the same document and concur with the upper legislative chamber before it could be sent to President
Muhammadu Buhari for his assent.
With about three weeks to political parties’ primaries; federal lawmakers may need to exert some pressures on Buhari to urgently assent to the document.

While presenting his lead debate Omo-Agege, indicated that the bill was seeking to amend the provision of section 84(8) of the Electoral Act.
According to him, the provisions of the section “does not provide for the participation of what is generally known as ‘statutory delegates’ in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties.”

“The extant section only clearly provides for the participation of elected delegates in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties held to nominate candidates of political parties. 
“This is an unintended error, and we can only correct it with this amendment now before us”, the Deputy Senate President said.
The  President of the senate, Ahmad Lawan, indicated that the amendment became imperative in view of the deficiency created by the provision of section 84(8) of the extant Act. 
He said, “The amended Electoral Act of 2022 that we passed this year, has a deficiency that was never intended and that deficiency will deny all statutory delegates in all political parties from participation in congresses and conventions.

“And, therefore, such a major and unintended clause has to be amended before the party primaries starts in the next eight days. This is an emergency legislation, so to speak. 
“Our expectation is that the National Assembly – the two chambers – would finish with the processing of the amendment of this bill, between today (in the Senate) and tomorrow (in the House of Representatives), and then the Executive will do the assent.
“That is so important to enable every statutory delegate to participate in the party primaries right from the beginning that will start on the 18th of May, 2022.
“So, this is an emergency effort to ensure that nobody is denied his or her rightful opportunity as a delegate, especially the statutory delegates, and these are those who are elected.
“These are the President, Vice President, Members of the National Assembly, Governors, Members of the State Houses of Assembly, Chairmen of Council and their Councillors, National Working Committee Members of all the political parties and so on.

“This is a fundamental effort to ensure that we address this within the week, so that by next week, the Electoral Act, 2022 (amended version), will be very salutary for us to start our party primaries.”