Olusola Fabiyi, Kamarudeen Ogundele, Olalekan Adetayo and Theophilus Onojeghen

The leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission will, this week, hold a crucial meeting with the leaders of political parties towards the coming 2019 General Elections.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to withhold assent to the Electoral Act (Amended) Bill 2018, it was learnt, would top the agenda of the meeting.

The PUNCH gathered on Sunday that despite threats by some federal lawmakers to override Buhari on the rejected bill, opposition political parties feared that the National Assembly as currently constituted might not get the required number of members to do so.

They have therefore resolved to look beyond the parliament in finding a way out.

The first national spokesperson for the Coalition of United Political Parties, Imo Ugochinyere, confirmed these in an interview with our correspondent on Saturday.

He said, “The leadership of political parties will be meeting with INEC this week and top on the agenda of the meeting is that now that the President has refused to sign, it is now left for the electoral commission.

“There are some powers given to the commission under the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act to ensure free and fair conduct of elections.

“There are some provisions that INEC can amend the election guidelines with or without the President signing the law. Some of them include the use of card readers like the commission did in Ekiti and Osun states. You can see that the number of voters did not skyrocket in those states because INEC did not use incident forms.”

He added, “INEC can also allow agents to have access to electoral materials, verify them and even do video recording of the materials without any law.

“The issue of ensuring that no result is announced without agents of political parties being present at the spot, stopping the police and soldiers from chasing away party agents so that they can doctor the results, the issue of ensuring that results are announced at every polling unit, the issue of collecting electronic results by INEC to compare, issue of serialising ballot papers for each polling unit, all these the INEC can do with or without the President.

“The first thing the INEC chairman must do, or else all political parties will pull out of the election, is that he has to announce to Nigerians that there will be no use of incident forms.”

He claimed the non-use of incident forms was important to avoid a repeat of what allegedly happened in 2015, when “out of the over seven million votes he (Buhari) got from the North-West, over five million came from incident forms.” He claimed that most of the people that voted for Buhari in the North-West were not accredited.

Ugochinyere added that another area of concern for the opposition parties ahead of the elections was the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris.

He said opposition parties were not comfortable with the information that the present administration might extend Idris’ tenure which he said would expire by January.

“Another important aspect is the position of the IG whose tenure is expiring in January. Going by the public service rule, he ought to have proceeded on terminal leave.

“But the two people who have hijacked the President want him re-appointed. Once that happens, what we will be having is no longer an IG but a man who will be willing to deploy security forces to achieve the dastardly act they are planning,” he alleged.

Ugochinyere said one of the steps that would be taken by opposition parties was to mobilise the people to perform the police function of arresting people who had committed electoral offence.

He said such people would be encouraged to resist and disarm political thugs.

That, he said, would be the option left for the opposition.

He said securing two-thirds in the House of Assembly to override the President would be impossible.

“So, we are looking beyond that to engage INEC to make promises and commitments to Nigerians on how the forthcoming elections can be free and fair,” he said.

He said the outcome of the meeting with INEC would go a long way in deciding whether the opposition parties would take part in the elections or not.

‘National Assembly can’t override Buhari’

Also, the National President of the Vanguard for Transparent Leadership and Democracy, Igbini Emmanuel, has said the National Assembly cannot override Buhari on the bill.

In an interview with our correspondent, Emmanuel said the bill was dead on arrival just like the desire of the National Chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomhole, to have the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, removed.


He said, “The President has withheld his assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill 2018 and appealed that if it would be eventually passed, its date of commencement should be after 2019 General Elections.

“Recall I made my position very clear months ago that any proposed amendment to our Electoral Act be suspended till after the 2019 General Elections or be considered dead on arrival the same way the plot to impeach Saraki was dead on arrival.

“The National Assembly cannot override Buhari on this bill for the same reason Oshiomhole cannot mobilise to remove Saraki and recover the ‘crown.’


https://punchng.com/unsigned-electoral-bill-inec-political-parties-meet-this-week/

Better

FG should also be invited to shed more light why the bill was rejected 4 times

At last

Wow I made front page

Today is my day

.

whytejoseph57:
Today is my day

Happy Happy birthday and many happy returns of the day to you.
ENJOY your day.

A lion has no friend. If Buhari wins a second term both his sycophantic praise singers and those who feed him with preys will all become preys

KingKingKing:
Kanu is a mad dog and a bastard!
Atiku is a buffon!

Someone's child. God forbid!

Trying to change the rules of the game at all cost.
Planning to buy a car this season? Contact us for your vehicle history reports to ensure you avoid dangerous cars.
Signature.

All hands must be on deck to check mate Executive
I personally do not have confidence in the Inec chairman

helinues:
Better

FG should also be invited to shed more light why the bill was refused 4 times

The bill was rejected 4 times and enemies of the Nation and the people of Nigeria will come here and say rubbish, they have claimed that PMB has a cult followership so they need not be afraid of the new electoral law.

God abeg pick my call When will my ftc come

"He claimed the non-use of incident forms was important to avoid a repeat of what allegedly happened in 2015, when “out of the over seven million votes he (Buhari) got from the North-West, over five million came from incident forms.” He claimed that most of the people that voted for Buhari in the North-West were not accredited."


That is why Buhari would rather die than sign the electoral bill into law because it would stop the move to rig him into office like it happened in 2015.

Meet to share money
And decide more
Sufferings for the masses...

TheGreenLand:
The law the PDP made by themselves is what they are crying about to be amended now, Something APC are suppose to be saying!
Foolish set of corrupt criminals!

Every Law has a loophole hence the continuous amendment and enacting of acts you keep hearing. All is geared towards making a better law. You might be in power today and benefit from the weak link and if you refuse to correct it because of that selfish gain then it will turn to hurt you tomorrow. PDP may not have seen the loophole until Buhari and the then INEC chairman exploited it to get over 5million votes out of his total of over 7million votes from NW such huge gap should be a big source of concern to all who means well for our democracy. Remember APC will not remain in power forever, tomorrow they may become opposition just like PDP is today.
Let our country come first before this party nonsense. Let our institutions seen lagging be strengthened for the benefit of all and the coming generations.

Hmmm

It must be signed

It's glaring why the president is refusing to assent to the amended electoral act/bill

TheGreenLand:
The law the PDP made by themselves is what they are crying about to be amended now, Something APC are suppose to be saying!
Foolish set of corrupt criminals!

PDP has hired hackers to rig the elections their money will end up a waste.

With no incident forms. The 2 man cabals are on a long thing..

Aso Rock Don dey sweet baba, baba no want to go daura

It must be signed. You can see that 5 million votes out of 7 million were from Incident fOrmsby
This shows that Buhari was rigged into the office by Jega

That IG is a rigging tool.
He would be rewarded with tenor elongation after 2019 election for perfect work done.
He orchestrated Kano master plan rigging.
He deserve Phd in Rigging elections.
His rigging ability comes with high precision and perfection.
IG=Rigging Tool
IG=Rigging machine.

zwonder:
God abeg pick my call When will my ftc come

whats so special about FTC

SEE THE SUSPECT SIDE OF THE REJECTED ELECTORAL ACT BACKUP WITH LOT OF SELFISH INTERESTS

Section 63(4) of the “old” electoral act addresses the issue of counting of votes and forms. This subsection says the presiding officer should count and announce the result at the polling units. The amended version to this subsection strikes out COUNT and simply states that the presiding officer should announce the result.

INFERENCE: This makes the process liable to manipulation.

Section 91 addresses the limitations on election expenses. The following is the list of maximum limit on election expenses that can be incurred by candidates, according to the old and the proposed:

Presidential election N1billion (Old)- N5billion (New)

Governorship election M200m (Old)- N1bn (New)

Senatorial Seat N40m (Old) -100m (New)

Federal House of Representatives N20m (Old) - N70m (New)

State Assembly N10m (Old) - N30m (New)

Chairmanship election N10m - N30m

Councillorship N1m (Old) - N5m (New)

Even 91(9) that prohibits any individual or entity from donating more than N1million has been amended to N10million.

INFERENCE: Is this a ploy to make our political space an exclusive preserve of the money-bags? Or to make the anomaly of vote buying a permanent feature of our elections?

And the most vexed and suspect is Section 25, which addresses the days of election. The proposed version tinkers with the sequence of elections. The elections will now be from the national assembly to the state assembly, then governorship and presidential, and not the other way round.

INFERENCE: The unofficial word out there is that the President would abandon the lawmakers if he contested first. But if his election was the last, he would dance to their tunes till the very end. Knowing how bills are typically driven by personal interests in this part of the world, it's hard not to think the lawmakers' minds are working this way, and even harder not to think Buhari will never sign!