Amendment Bill

IT is barely one month to the end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s first term. In another six weeks or so, the Eighth National Assembly will also wind up.
That the Executive and Legislative branches endured a stormy relationship since they came into government in May/June 2015 is beyond argument.
No other legislative instrument underlined the war of nerves that raged between the two estates of the realm more than the Electoral Amendment Bill 2018.
This Bill, which started receiving attention in 2016 due to the urgent need to correct the flaws of the 2015 general elections, was controversially rejected three times by the President.
On December 6, 2018, Buhari gave his reasons for refusing assent to it: “Any real or apparent change to the rules this close to the election may provide an opportunity for disruption and confusion in respect to which law governs the electoral process.
“This leads me to believe that it is in the best interest of the country and our democracy for the National Assembly to specifically state in the Bill that the Electoral Act will come into effect and be applicable to elections commencing after the 2019 general elections.”
Thus was torpedoed the high hopes many Nigerians had placed on the use of a more highly refined law to conduct the 2019 general.......Read more

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/05/buhari-should-sign-the-electoral-amendment-bill/