Time To Move ON

A new page has unfolded in Nigeria’s quest for perfect democracy following the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the New Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2022 bringing an end to a 12- year-journey. Since 2011, there has been agitations for the electoral law to be improved upon and amended to enable it accommodate the use of technology and improve the electoral process. The conduct of the 2015 general elections in which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) decided to introduced the card reader as a way of ensuring only persons who registered and were issued authentic voters’ card voted, made the change of the law inevitable.
During the Eighth Senate under the leadership of Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki a draft including the reform of the electoral process was proposed and approved. The Senate also proposed that it would amend the Electoral Act long before the next general elections so as not to get it mired in the partisan controversies and scheming that characterize the election period. The new Bill passed on to the President on January 31st, 2022 corrected the issue of direct primaries and rather added the indirect and consensus means of selecting candidates as alternatives. However, the House of Representatives again introduced another controversial provision in which it proposed that all political appointees se...