The Deputy Senate President of
the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has promised that legislative work on the Electoral
Act and the amendment of the
constitution will be concluded in few weeks.
He spoke on Monday when he
received a delegation of the British High Commission in Nigeria led by the High
Commissioner, Mr. Paul Arkwright.
Details of the meeting were made
available by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr. Uche Anichukwu.
Ekweremadu, who expressed
gratitude to the British Government for always showing interest in state of the
Nigerian union and her democracy, said concluding the amendments to the
Electoral Act and Constitution amendment was top on the priority list of the
eighth National Assembly to ensure better governance and smooth elections in
2019.
“The 2019 election is very important to
Nigeria. The amendments to the Electoral Act and the constitution all form part
of the ongoing electoral reform to continue to improve on the quality of our
elections.
“In the previous amendment, a
timeframe was set for the determination of election petitions. Now we are
working on setting a timeframe for pre-election matters. In the previous
amendments, we also created a window for direct and indirect primary by
political parties. In the current amendment, we want to make more elaborate
provisions regarding direct party primaries for political parties that may wish
to adopt it to ensure greater fairness, transparency, and internal democracy in
choosing their standard bearers,
“We are also working to lift the
restrictions on the use of electronic voting by the Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC. That way, it will be up to the election management
body to determine if it is sufficiently prepared to deploy electronic voting or
when to adopt electronic voting.”
Ekweremadu was also of the view
that the rearrangement of the order of election as passed by the House of
Representatives, if adopted by the Conference Committee of both Houses, would
help the electorate to judge each candidate on his or her own merit at each
level of election.
“The bottom line is that the
Conference Committees on both the Electoral Act and constitution amendment are
meeting separately this week to conclude work on the entire amendments to
ensure a smoother and more credible electoral processes as well as promote good
governance of the country,” he added.
Earlier, the British High
Commissioner, Arkwright, said they had come to see the Deputy President of the
Senate on political developments, especially as it concerned the prospects for
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and legislative activities of the National
Assembly.
“The legislative programme, which
you have in the Senate and the National Assembly, the changes to the electoral
laws are also important to us,” Arkwright concluded.
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