The presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, says refusal of President Buhari to sign the amended Electoral Act shows how desperate he has become to win the 2019 presidential elections.

At a World Press Conference in Abuja on Monday, the presidential candidate described the President’s action as undemocratic and unpopular.

According to her, the excuses of the President for not completing the process that will give Nigeria one of the soundest electoral laws in the world amount to an assault on “our democracy and this must be rejected roundly by all Nigerians.”

Ezekwesili said, “The 2019 elections are looked upon as the moment Nigeria must entrench electoral integrity and level playing field for all contestants. Regrettably, President Muhammadu Buhari has by his self-serving opposition to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018 shown that he wishes to subvert the will of the Nigerian people for the conduct of a credible election in 2019.

She said, “I advise the President to rethink his opposition to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018. The President should immediately request the National Assembly to retransmit the amendment Bill for his swift ascent into an Act.

“I call upon the National Assembly to act as the assembly of the good people of Nigeria and within the next three days, mobilise their majority membership to override President Muhammadu Buhari’s self-serving and dangerous opposition to the 2018 Electoral Act Amendment Bill.

“I call upon all well-meaning political parties to collaborate and urgently act together to ensure that the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018 definitely becomes an Act on which the 2019 election shall be conducted.

She expressed concern over the bad governance experienced in Nigeria for the past 19 years.

She complained that Nigeria’s democratic journey has yet to produce the change Nigerians expect.

She said, “There is however a limit to celebrating the mere existence of democracy in our country. This is because, every objective assessment of our democratic journey since 1999 has mostly always returned the sobering verdict that we are still very much in the nascent, fragile, tenuous and fledgling zone of democracy as our choice of political system of governance.

“So far, good governance has on the aggregate eluded Nigeria. The last 19 years have not given Nigerians an aggregate top quality of political actors. Nigerians are demanding for a new leadership direction for the country to end the entrapment in governance failures of the last decades. Nigerians believe that our democracy and governance can be vastly improved through genuine elections.”