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Olisa Agbakoba |
A senior lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba, has written the National Assembly,
demanding that they override President Muhammadu Buhari on the Electoral
Act Amendment Bill.
In a letter addressed to the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, the senior lawyer said that Buhari’s decision to decline
assent to the bill ‘makes no sense.’
Agbakoba also stated that the 2018 Electoral Amendment bill will help
to improve the credibility of the elections and also give a legal basis
for INEC to deploy electronic technology in 2019 elections.
The letter he personally signed and entitled, overriding the
presidential decline to assent to 2018 ELECTORAL ACT, reads in full:
”The decision of the President to withhold Assent in respect of a
Bill to enact a Law to amend the Electoral Act makes no sense. The Final
draft Bill considered by NASS, was agreed with the President, precisely
to avoid challenges, such as now occurred.
The President states that part of the reason he has withheld Assent
is to avoid confusion as to the applicable legal framework for 2019
Elections and the administrative capacity of INEC to cope with the new
Electoral Act, as it is all too close to 2019 elections.
Distinguished and Honourable Members will recall that the major
amendment to 2018 Electoral Act relates to electronic technology for the
conduct of the 2019 elections.
The 2015 elections were partly conducted by INEC, using smart cards
(card readers) but the Supreme Court held that smart cards are not
allowed, not been included in the Electoral Act 2010. The 2015 elections
were also partly conducted by INEC using Incident forms; in effect
smart cards and Incident Forms were both used to conduct 2015 elections.
Distinguished and Honourable Members of NASS, will recall that there
was a lot of controversy about the use of Incident Forms as it enabled
non accredited persons to vote, questioning the credibility of the
elections.
In order to remove constraints that will impact the credibility of
future elections, such as 2019, the Electoral Act 2010, was amended by
the 2018 Bill, to formalize the legal basis of the Smart Cards which was
already in use for elections by INEC anyway. It will be recalled that
the Supreme Court declared use of Smart Cards as contrary to the
Electoral Act 2010, so the 2018 amendment is intended to give INEC a legal basis to use Smart Cards and Electronic Technology.
The 2018 Bill also introduced the extremely important procedure of
transmitting results of votes from Polling Units by electronic means.
Electronic transmission will remove rigging and enhance the credibility
of the Vote Count. INEC says it is familiar with the amendments
contained in the 2018 Electoral Bill. INEC has used smart cards at all
elections from 2015.
INEC has submitted an election budget which provides for Smart Cards
and transmission equipment. The President claims that part of the reason
for withholding Assent, is that INEC will not have enough time to
become familiar with the 2018 Bill and that a new Act will generate
confusion.
This is simply incorrect and flies in the face of INEC’s announcement
that it will not use Incident Forms or manual voting in 2019 elections.
In other words, INEC is ready to deploy electronic technology for 2019
elections, and only requires that the Electoral Act provides a legal
framework.
The 2018 Amendments will help to improve the credibility of our
Elections and also give legal basis for INEC to deploy electronic
technology in 2019 elections, following doubts cast by the Supreme Court
about the legality of the use of card readers because it was not
provided in the old Electoral Act of 2010.
Distinguished and Honourable Members of NASS, are please please urged to override Mr President and enact 2018 Electoral Act.”
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