PDP Governors Urge Buhari To Sign Electoral Bill

Governors on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, have urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sign into law the electoral bill before him.

The contentious bill was harmonised and passed by the two chambers few weeks ago for the second time.

The president had withheld his assent to the first bill raising concerns about a particular clause which compelled political parties to adopt direct primaries to elect their candidates for election.

The president had explained that while it would be costly to adopt (only) direct primary to elect candidates, it would be undemocratic at the same time.

He advised the National Assembly to look at the grey areas for amendments, assuring that he would sign it into law once that was done.

Consequently, the lawmakers reintroduce the bill at resumption of plenary and reworked it to add direct, indirect and independent candidates to the bill.

The lawmakers also added that all elected and appointed officials of governments should resign before vying for elective post, precluding them from (even) taking part in their respective primary elections.

The electorial clause, which was introduced into the second amendment has drawn the ire of the governors under the platform of the APC, who are now vehemently opposing signing it into law.

But rising from their meeting in Yenegoa, the PDP governors urged the President to immediately sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill into law.

“Waiting to run out the 30 days is yet another sign of unwillingness by the President to give Nigeria a reformed Electoral framework. If there are still misgivings on any aspect of the Bill, amendments may be introduced at a later stage,” the communique said.

The forum also expressed delight at the performance of the party’s candidates at the just concluded FCT Council Election.

The PDP won 43 out of 62 councillorship positions in the council election results, while winning three chairmanship positions out of six.

The party won the Abuja Municipal Area Council, the richest and biggest council in the FCT and the second choice council, which is Bwari.

The forum however said inspite of improvements in the conduct of elections, “the Gwagwalada and Abuja Area Council results show that manipulations are still possible.”

It urged INEC to tighten all observed loopholes and further improve on the functioning of the BIVAS Machine for future elections.

The forum hailed the Court decision on Police Trust Fund deductions from the Federation Account, a suit at the instance of Rivers State and urged the Federal Government to stop similar unconstitutional deductions from the Federation Account.

As the National Assembly winds down this current phase of the Constitution Review exercise, the forum urged that they revisit the issue of devolution of more powers to the States and Local Governments.

It noted that the opportunity to rejig the framework for policing and securing Nigeria should not be missed. Consequently, the PDP forum agreed to set up a Panel of Consultants to have a thorough look at the security architecture of Nigeria and make recommendations.

The governors also urged the National Assembly to transfer some items from the Exclusive Legislative List to Concurrent List.

The meeting was attended by Governors Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, who is the Vice Chairman, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri of Adamawa, Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom, Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, and Douye Diri of Bayelsa states.

Others were governors Samuel Ortom of Benue, Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta, Godwin Obaseki of Edo, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu, Oluseyi Abiodun Makinde of Oyo and Nyesom Wike of Rivers states.