{"id":2875,"date":"2022-09-06T10:53:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T10:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=2875"},"modified":"2022-09-06T10:53:39","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T10:53:39","slug":"electoral-act-put-to-test-as-campaign-nears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/electoral-act-put-to-test-as-campaign-nears\/","title":{"rendered":"Electoral Act Put to Test as Campaign Nears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The passage of the Electoral Act 2022 by the National Assembly and assent to it by President Muhammadu Buhari on 25<sup>th<\/sup> February 2022 marked a milestone in the agitations for the improvement of Nigeria\u2019s electoral system. The 2022 Electoral Act replaced the 12-year old 2010 Electoral Act, which had undergone several amendments. The 2022 Act contains several innovative prescriptions to tackle the challenges facing Nigeria\u2019s elections. A key element in the new Act is the confirmation of the use of technology for elections, including electronic transmission of results and simplification of other aspects of the electoral process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 2022 Act came under severe pressure shortly after its\ncommencement when members of the National Assembly sought to amend it to allow\nfor increased number of delegates to participate in the primaries of political\nparties that held in May and June 2022. Members of the National Assembly had discovered\ntoo late that they had inadvertently omitted a provision that had been there which\nallowed for statutory delegates to participate in the primaries. A hurried\neffort to correct their omission could not be readied in time for presidential\nassent. This meant that the primaries of the political parties did not have a\nhigh number of delegates to dilute the powers of Governors in the States. The\neffect was that several legislators lost their renomination bids. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the campaigns set to begin, various aspects of the\nElectoral Act will come up for implementation and evaluation, opening the\nquestion whether the Act will live up to its billing as the answer to several\nchallenges facing elections. Campaigns are set to begin on September 28 and\nNigerians and election stakeholders will see the extent to which&nbsp; the new Act will impact on the election\nitself. A particular aspect of the election that will come into focus is\ncampaign finance. Questions will arise: To what extent will money play a role\nin the elections? What does the Electoral Act say about campaign finance or\nabout the extent of contributions to the campaign purse of political parties\nand candidates? What sums of money can be used for advertisements? Do the\nprovisions on campaign finance have different implications for a political\nparty distinct from a candidate? There will also be the question of how\nelectoral violence can be curbed. What safeguards are there in the Electoral\nAct to curb campaign and electoral violence? Who has the responsibility to\narrest electoral offenders? Who can prosecute electoral offenders? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given the National Assembly\u2019s recent effort to pass a\nNational Electoral Offences Commission bill, the question is, will this bill be\npassed in time for use for the 2023 elections? If passed, will the President\nassent to it? If the President assents to it, will it be funded to give it life\nfor use for the 2023 general elections? \n\nThe Electoral Act will be key to the\nimplementation of a credible electoral process in the 2023 general elections\nand Nigerians are looking forward to seeing the new Act live up to its\nexpectation as a major landmark improvement in Nigeria\u2019s electoral process.&nbsp; \n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The passage of the Electoral Act 2022 by the National Assembly and assent to it by President Muhammadu Buhari on 25th February 2022 marked a milestone in the agitations for the improvement of Nigeria\u2019s electoral system. The 2022 Electoral Act replaced the 12-year old 2010 Electoral Act, which had undergone several amendments. The 2022 Act [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2879,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions\/2879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}