Electoral Act 2022: The irrational target of National Assembly against themselves

By John D’Law Chuku

Laws are supposed to be universal and not targeted at any citizens. But the current members of the NASS headed by Sen. Ahmad Lawan and Rt. Hon. Gbajiabiamila does not believe in fair play.

They make laws to target one section of the people against the other. The universality of our Laws does not mean anything to them. This is the case of the hurriedly packaged section 84(4) of the electoral act (2022) recently signed into law.

The two chambers of the National Assembly in a bid to whittle down the influence of the President and Governors ended up excluding themselves from the primaries of their respective political parties.

While President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Electoral Act into Law, he pleaded with the National Assembly to amend Section 82(12) which barred Political appointees from being voting delegates in the primaries of Political Parties, but his pleading fell on deaf ears.

We can tacitly aver that someone lobbied the National Assembly to reject the amendment of the Act which would have been favourable to the Executive.

In a viral video, Sen. Ovie Omo Agege (The Deputy Senate President ) was overheard, beating his chest that he singlehandedly drafted the Electoral Act and ensured the powers of the Executive were reduced.

Unknown to him and his gang, Section 84 automatically removed the President, Vice President, Governors, Deputy Governors, Senators, House of Representatives members, House of Assembly members, Executive Chairman, Deputy Chairmen and Councilors who are supposed to be “statutory delegates” from voting in the primaries.

Now, after they discovered the lacuna, the both chambers of the National Assembly hurriedly amended the act again. They pleading for President Buhari to sign before the commencement of the Primaries. What a joking NASS!

Unfortunately to them and fortunately to other persons, President Buhari is not in the Country and the Primaries commences this weekend. This implies that all of them won’t be voting at the political party primaries this election year.

You see, while the National Assembly wanted to cage some ministers, they have ended up caging themselves.

For the first time in our political history, only the three man delegates from each LGA might be voting in the upcoming Primaries of the various Political Parties.