President Muhammadu Buhari has withheld assent on the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2018. Reading the communication from the President addressed to the House of Representatives at its plenary session on Tuesday, 13th March, 2018, the Speaker Yakubu Dogara (APC: Bauchi) stated that the President had declined assent to the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill in addition to adducing reasons for refusing assent in line with section 58(4) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
Some of the reasons given by the President for withholding assent include:
- That the amendment to the sequence of the elections in Section 25 of the Principal Act may infringe upon the constitutionally guaranteed discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission to organize, undertake and supervise all elections as provided in Section 15(a) of the third schedule to the Constitution;
- That the amendment to Section 138 of the principal Act to delete two crucial grounds upon which an election may be challenged by candidates unduly limits the rights of candidates in elections to a free and fair electoral review process and
- That the amendment to Section 152(3)-(5) of the principal Act may raise constitutional issues over the competence of the National Assembly to legislate over local government elections.
Under the proposed amendments to section 25, elections had been proposed by the National Assembly to hold in the following order:
- National Assembly Elections
- State Houses of Assembly and Governorship Elections
- Presidential Election
This deviates from the current position that gives INEC discretion to appoint dates for when elections should be conducted. In addition, the amendments to Section 138 sought to expand on the grounds of petition and void elections conducted by the State Independent Electoral Commission in local government councils of the Federation that failed to comply with the Electoral Act or its procedures in the conduct of elections.
A similar letter addressed to the Senate President rejecting the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2018 was also read out on the floor of the Senate chambers.
