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APC tells US institutes why it supports Buhari’s rejection of Electoral Act Bill

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AGGRIEVED APC ASPIRANTS: 'The more Oshiomhole talks, the more crisis he creates'

Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has given reasons why it is in support of President Muhammadu Buhari’s rejection of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2018.

The party’s national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, gave the reasons in Abuja when a joint pre-election assessment delegation of two United States of America (USA) based political institutes, International Republican Institute (IRI), and National Democratic Institute (NDI), visited the APC National Working Committee (NWC).

Buhari had, to the anger of many opposition parties and several other Nigerians, refused to give his assent for the fourth time to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018.

The document if assented to, some have argued, would have gone a long way to curtail many of the shortcomings currently being faced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and which has also been responsible for irregularities in the conduct of elections in the country.

But Oshiomhole told his visitors, “You raised the issue which the President spoke to about the hurried attempt to amend the Electoral Act. The issue is, what are the key issues in the Electoral Act? Now, you digitize the entire process. That has its benefits but it also has huge challenges.

“It now depends on the good heart of those technicians in the control room where the ICT is operated and given the level of illiteracy in the country, given the challenge of unstable power supply in the country, to digitize everything raises issues that cannot just be dismissed.

“The laws as they are empower INEC to use card readers. The Electoral Act empowers the electoral body to make subsidiary rules that have the force of law.

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“A number of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governors, including Rivers State, Akwa Ibom State, if you look at the results for 2015 election, they did not use this card reader. I think that is where the issue came from.

“The Supreme Court tried to show their own bias in favour of the PDP; the Supreme Court held that yes, INEC rules said use card readers but because it is not in the law, it is not necessarily binding. Our point is that, it is not right even internationally, to change rules of election on the eve of the election.”

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