If I sign Electoral Bill now, it’ll create confusion and uncertainty —Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has given reasons why he declined assent to the electoral bill sent to him by the National Assembly.

He gave his reason in a letter he sent to both chambers of the National Assembly, explaining that passing a new bill with elections close by could ‘create some uncertainty about the legislation to govern the process.’

He went further to say that it could create some confusion, even as he claimed that some part of the bills needed legislative action.

His letter to the National Assembly leaders read in part, “Pursuant to section 58 (4) of Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), I hereby convey to the House of Representatives, my decision on 6th December 2018 to decline Presidential Accent to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2018 recently passed by the National Assembly.

“I am declining assent to the Bill principally because I am concerned that passing a new electoral bill this far into the electoral process for the 2019 general elections which commenced under the 2015 Electoral Act, could create some uncertainty about the applicable legislation to govern the process.

“Any real or apparent change to the rules this close to the election may provide an opportunity for disruption and confusion in respect of which law governs the electoral process.

“This leads me to believe that it is in the best interest of the country and our democracy for the national assembly to specifically state in the Bill, that the Electoral Act will come into effect and be applicable to elections commencing after the 2019 General Elections”.

Buhari’s denial to assent the bill for the fourth time has attracted reactions from the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) and former Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose.

CUPP in a statement on Friday by its national spokesperson, Imo Ugochinyere, faulted President Buhari’s decision to again withhold assent to the 2018 Electoral Amendment Bill.

The coalition said the latest action of the President portrayed him as a jittery President who is afraid of electoral defeat and yet desperate to cling on to power.

“President Buhari has expectedly failed again to take advantage of the rare opportunity of the Electoral Amendment Bill to write his name in gold as the President that signed the laws that guaranteed electoral credibility in Nigeria.

“But yet again, as usual of him, he failed to rise to the occasion, being blinded by ambition and the love of the perks of office.

“It is an act of clear desperation that the President had shown. For each of the four times the Electoral Amendment Bill was presented to him for assent, he waited until the last day of his constitutionally allowed 30 days.

“Nigerians should also be reminded that throughout the amendment process, President Buhari never made any suggestions or proposals to the National Assembly for the improvement of our electoral process but kept delaying and indulging in unnecessary hide-and-seek until this last minute.

“Rather, the President is willing to allow Nigeria witness her most violent elections when he had the opportunity to sign the law which guarantees the freest and most credible elections in Nigeria’s history,” the statement read.

Ugochinyere added that APC’s plan is how to steal the people’s mandate to perpetuate the present government in power.

He said in order to checkmate the APC move, that the opposition would in the coming days unveil a strategy called ‘Opposition Code 20.’

“This Code is as enshrined in Section 20 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act which allows citizens to perform policing duties of arrest.

“The section provides that ‘a private person may arrest a suspect in Nigeria who in his presence commits an offence or whom he reasonably suspects of having committed an offence for which the Police is entitled to arrest without a warrant.’

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“This code is the effective counter-measure to the stealing and rigging plot of the APC and President Buhari. Nigerians have had enough of the Buhari misfortune and are resolved on consigning it to history where generations shall be taught on the kind of persons not to be elected President in any country ever again.

“President Buhari by all indications is willing to plunge Nigeria into electoral crisis worse than those that twice directly led to the collapse of democracy after the 1963 and 1983 general elections.”

In his reaction Fayose said on his Twitter handle, “What is President Buhari’s fear concerning this Electoral Bill? Can the interest of a single individual be placed above that of Nigeria and its people? Is he saying that even his party members in the NASS were wrong to have passed the Electoral Bill?”

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