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INEC dares NASS

Published

8 years ago

February 16, 2018

Gives condition to obey new law

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seems set for a loggerhead with the two Chambers of the National Assembly over the reviewed time table for the 2019 general elections.

The Commission is taking on partisan path by giving conditions under which it will accept or

impalement the resolution of the Senate and the house of representatives on the amendment of the electoral law which altered the order of elections earlier specified by INEC.

The issue the condition INEC is giving before complying with the new law is obviously an issue to handle by the Court of law not an institution of the state that is expected to be neutral and unbiased in its duties.

The Commission was gathered to have given the condition that the amended Electoral Act will be implemented if assented by President Muhammadu Buhari.

In as much as the condition indicate the final stage of law making, INEC is not the one regulating executive/legislature relations; if any dispute in the process, the judiciary intervenes. INEC cannot assume the duties of the judiciary.

Besides, the Commission cannot be oblivion that if President Buhari fails to assent to any enactment by the national Assembly within specified period, the legislature can overrule president and may make a review of the process after which the law does not require presidential assent anymore and has to be implemented, accordingly.

The Senate had endorsed the conference committee report on the Electoral Act 2010 (Amendment) Bill, which alters the sequence in which elections are conducted in the country.

However, the INEC timetable indicated that the Presidential and National Assembly elections will be conducted same day. The governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections were to follow thereafter.

There was an uproar in the Senate on Wednesday when the amendment was ratified at plenary. Some All Progressives Congress (APC) senators walked out of the floor in protest.

The amendment was first concluded at the House of Representatives; the Senate merely concurred to complement the process already rested in the Lower Chamber.