*Targets non-returning senators, reps
*We won’t accept bribe from PDP to veto president
 There are indications that the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is mobilising its members in the National Assembly to override President Muhammadu Buhari’s veto on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2018. Against this backdrop, the party is said not only to be mobilising funds, but also making promises to All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers, especially those who failed to secure their party’s ticket for the forthcoming 2019 general elections to return to the National Assembly. Most of the APC lawmakers are still aggrieved with their party’s national leadership over the way they were schemed out during the primaries despite promises of automatic tickets.
A source within the National Assembly, who spoke with one of our correspondents, said the PDP was not leaving anything to chance to ensure that the President was vetoed on the bill and had already contacted some of the aggrieved APC senators. Though some of the lawmakers who spoke on the issue, denied knowledge of monetary offer by the PDP to have them veto the president on the bill, the source said aggrieved APC lawmakers had already been approached by the opposition part with several offers. He said: “Yes, the PDP is not happy that President Muhammadu Buhari withheld his accent to the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and it has not given up.
Its next move is to rally its members in the National Assembly to veto the president. Recall that its members head both chambers of the National Assembly. “Besides its members, the opposition party is also reaching out to members of the APC, particularly those who lost out in the primaries of the ruling party. Most of them were promised return tickets during the leadership crisis in the Senate and House of Representatives, but the party reneged on its promise. “So, there is the likelihood that these aggrieved APC lawmakers might seize the opportunity to seek their pound of flesh. Having lost out in their party, they might grab the offer by the PDP, which includes cash and promise of lucrative appointments if the opposition party wins the presidential election.”
But, Chairman of South- East PDP Senate Caucus, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, who told one of our correspondents that there was no isolated plan by the opposition in the Senate or the National Assembly to veto the President on the Electoral Act (amendment) Bill, pointed out that though the national leadership of the opposition party had called the National Assembly as awhole to override Buhari, the PDP as a party had not committed any fund to prosecute the proposal. Abaribe, who argued that the question was not whether the PDP wants to override Buhari, but whether the National Assembly would want to do what is right by heeding to quest by Nigerians, who according to him, want the President to sign the bill into law without giving further excuses.
He said: “The question is not whether PDP senators or lawmakers in the National Assembly generally want to override Buhari; the question is, will the National Assembly do what is right by listening to the voice of Nigerians, who gave them their mandate to represent them in the parliament, which is the highest lawmaking body in the country. “You know very well as much as I do that Nigerians have been calling on the National Assembly to override Mr. President’s veto because they believe that his refusal to sign this all important bill into law is not in the interest of the country.
"The President knows very well that the Electoral Bill in question is designed in such a way that it will be very difficult for elections to be rigged. The bill made provision for instant transmission of results from the polling booths to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) collection centre, which will not allow anybody to manipulate the figures.”
Noting that he was support any move to override the bill because it would obvious that he did not act in national interest, Abaribe added: “As a patriotic citizen of Nigeria and nationalist, I will totally support any move to override President Muhammadu Buhari on the Electoral Bill because it is very obvious that he did not act in national interest, which should be the guiding principle of every public office holder. In fact, I will be the first person to vote to override him.
“Declining to assent to the bill is an indication that he does not want a free, fair and credible election, which the bill seeks to achieve. It is so obvious that the APC is afraid of a credible process, so they want to avoid any mechanism that can stop them from rigging, but Nigerians will hold him accountable.”
Senator Sam Egwu (PDP, Ebonyi North), who also spoke on the issue, said: “Mr. President has given his reasons which many Nigerians are not happy with. We are going to discuss it at the National Assembly, and when that time comes, we shall look at it on its merit”. Another senator, Chukwuka Utazi (PDP, Enugu North) said: “we have left the 2019 general elections to fate because time is no longer there.
Some of us feel that some of those who work with Mr. President are not advising him adequately. “We feel that the number one legal officer he has, who is the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice should have advised him that this is not going to cause any havoc to anything we are doing; rather it will improve the elections of this country so that it becomes free, fair, credible and acceptable to everybody at the end of the day because we are transparent.”
Denying the allegation that the PDP has moved in money and was bribing members of the APC to support its bid to veto the President on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, Chairman of the House of Representatives committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon. Abdulrazaq Namdas, said no such thing exist. Namdas, who spoke in a telephone interview, said to the best of his knowledge “no such thing is happening in the House of Representatives.”
He added that no member of the APC would reduce himself to accepting bribe from the opposition PDP to work against by the position of the party. Namdas said: “There is nothing like that. As far as I know, no PDP official or any person whatsoever has offered any member of the APC bribe to work for the PDP to overturn the president’s veto on the Electoral Act. “No member of the APC has been approached; I have not been approached and even if we are approached with such an offer, we will reject it out right. It is not in our character to solicit or accept bribes in order to exercise our statutory functions of legislation and oversight. So, we will not be part of such an agenda.”
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