House Of Reps to decide Nigeria's next President, Governors and Senators

In what has to be the most shameful and self serving parody of the failed
institution we call "Democracy",the House of Reps has surreptitiously
inserted an amendment into the Electoral Act that guarantees that all
serving senators and representatives would gain automatic membership
of ALL current parties NEC (their decision making bodies).
What this means in essence is that the House of Reps would form the
largest bloc in a party like PDP and would be able to take decisions
as to who emerges as Presidential, Gubernatorial and Senatorial candidates
WITHOUT INPUT from other NEC members.
This is a very disturbing trend and should be resisted in its entirety by
all Nigerians. If this amendment is allowed to become law, the present crop
of avaricious senators and representatives would remain in the senate till
they die as they would always ensure that they give themselves automatic
tickets for all elections. In addition they would become the most powerful
individuals in Nigeria as teh president and governors would be unable to
check their excesses for fear of punitive action meted out against them in
the form of dismissal from the party, lack of support for a second ticket
among other options.
Find the rest of the story as published in Thisday below and post your comments


Controversial Electoral Act Amendment for Second Reading Today
From Onwuka Nzeshi in Abuja, 11.08.2010

The controversial bill for amendment of the 2010 Electoral Act has been slated for second reading today, THISDAY learnt last night.
If it eventually succeeds and is passed into law, members of the National Assembly will become automatic members of their respective parties' highest decision-making body, the National Executive Council (NEC).

By implication, the House of Representatives will become the largest voting bloc in the NEC because of their sheer number.
The amendment, which has been shrouded in secrecy since last week, was flagged off last Thursday when the bill was read for the first time on the floor of the House and immediately pencilled down for second reading at the next legislative day.
The new bill sponsored by Hon. Cyril Maduabum (PDP Anambra) and Hon. Igo Aguma (PDP Rivers) proposed for amendments  Section 87(4) of the principal Act by inserting immediately after clause 11, a new subsection.

The new insertions state as follows: “Every political party in Nigeria shall establish in its constitution a National Executive Committee (NEC), which shall be the highest decision-making body of the political party. The membership of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of a political party shall be as followsi) the president and the former president who are members of the party; (ii) The vice-president and former vice-presidents who are members of the party; (iii) governors who are members of the party; (iv) members of the National Assembly who are members of the party; (v) former presiding officers of the National Assembly who are members of the party; (vi) chairman and secretary  of the Board of Trustees, where applicable; (vii) former national chairmen; (viii) former chairmen, Board of Trustees; (ix) state chairmen of the party; (x) zonal chairmen of the party where applicable and (xi) national officers of the party.”

Curiously, however, the bill also states that a quorum for meeting of the NEC of a political party shall be one half of its total membership while all NEC decisions on electoral matters require two-thirds of its quorum.
If this sails through, the House members alone could form the quorum and take decisions.
Effectively, the 262 PDP members of the House of Representatives will outnumber all other blocs in the party, with Senators (95) coming a distant second, followed by state party executives (84) and governors (28).

In its explanatory note, the sponsors of the bill claimed that the essence of seeking a fresh amendment to the Electoral Act 2010 was simply to include the timeframe for the conduct of general election in Nigeria as a result of the amendment to the 1999 Constitution and to strengthen the internal democratic practice of political parties.
THISDAY checks revealed that the lawmakers felt that over the past 10 years of the country’s democracy, they had been at the receiving end of the political horse trading between the Presidency and the state governors and now want to break the jinx.

The calculation is that whereas the president and governors usually have a retinue of aides and appointees to rely on for votes during party primaries, members of the National Assembly have always been left in the lurch, a situation they claim has been responsible for the low return rate or high turnover of legislators at the end of every election.
Some members also expressed the desire to checkmate the "overbearing influence" of state governors in the running of political parties and have a voice in the final choice of candidates to fly the parties’ banners during elections.

One of the proponents of the bill told THISDAY that the idea of making lawmakers members of NEC of their parties was not entirely new except that it was before now the internal rule of some political parties.
According to the lawmaker, the new drive was not about the immediate gain of securing an automatic ticket but a longer gain of promoting participatory democracy and reducing the influence of party godfathers.

True federalism is the answer to the madness siezing our politicians. With true federalism will come true representation and there will be no space for bastar'ds manically seeking to heighten their already obscene avenues to abuse power and steal money. The monkeys are already the highest paid politicians in the World (in a relatively poor country where the masses live wretched lives), but that is not enough.

Dem don dey give all these mugus level

This looks like an old news. Is it not the same amendment to the electoral act that the NASS threw out?

First Poster. where is your link to this news?