Govs, Saraki, Ekweremadu hail Buhari over assent to Electoral Act Amendment Bill

President Muhammadu Buhari has been commended for signing the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2022 into law.

Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Kayode Fayemi said Buhari has silenced his critics.

He said the gesture of the President has exonerated him and his colleagues who had assured that the document would be signed.

Fayemi made these observations when he spoke to State House Correspondents, shortly after the President assented to the bill.

Commenting on the impact of the bill, he said, “Yes. I think it’s a huge relief that this piece of legislation has been finally signed 12 years after the last one. The last Electoral Act operating is a 2010 Act. And we must commend the National Assembly, particularly the committee on INEC both in the Senate and the House of Reps for doing such a yeoman’s job of putting this together, and ensuring that we have a law, that can accord with global standards, and with the yearnings of the ordinary Nigerians.

“There’s been a lot of hullabaloo about this over the last few weeks, even bordering on scepticism that it would not be signed. I’m glad that some of us have been proved right because we told the media that Mr President will sign this piece of legislation as soon as the section that he raised concerns about are removed from the legislation, and they’ve been removed, and he’s lived up to that belief that many of us have because he has always said to Nigerians anyway, that one legacy he would like to leave as he departs office is a credible and fair electoral system.

“This will go a long way in making that possible.”

Similarly, former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, in a statement by the head of his media office, Yusuph Olaniyonu, said although Buhari deserves praise for rising above partisan politics to sign the bill, CSOs deserve big applause for continuously agitating for the passage of the new Electoral Act in the past one year.

He said the old electoral law had been part of Nigeria’s problems.

“The new Electoral Act brings us closer to having free, fair, and peaceful elections in which people’s votes count, where the majority will have their way and the minority will have their say,” he noted.

Saraki recalled the various efforts that he and his colleagues made in the eighth National Assembly to give the country a new Electoral Act which led to the submission of the bill four times without getting the presidential assent.

“I enjoin these youths in the CSOs to take their efforts to another level. That is the level of mobilising their numerous colleagues to go and register to vote in the coming general elections,” Saraki added.

Meanwhile, Ekweremadu, who said he had been part of the nation’s electoral reform for over 10 years, said “the journey to the new Electoral Act was by far the most frustrating.”

He said this in a post on his verified Facebook page titled, ‘The New Electoral Act Is Progress For Our Democracy,’ shared on Friday shortly after the President signed the Bill into law.

Ekweremadu said, “After the major electoral reform of 2010 that also involved amendments to the 1999 Constitution to, among others, open the doors to technology in our electoral system, check some executive excesses, manipulations by political parties, and strengthen the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) through financial and administrative autonomy, our expectation after amendments to the Electoral Act in 2015 was that the new administration would support the National Assembly to further straighten our electoral laws and system.

“Unfortunately, four times, the amendments were turned down in the 8th National Assembly, apparently thwarted by narrow, partisan interests and ambitions.

“The efforts in the current National Assembly also faced similar challenges, but it is heart-warming that it has finally materialised with the presidential assent.

“Certainly, we didn’t get all we pushed for in the new law, but it is nevertheless a quantum leap for our electoral system and I congratulate all, who played a part in it, notably the civil society, media, and all Nigerians, who stood up for the nation’s democracy.

“With the electronic transmission of election results, early primary elections, and adequate time for INEC to prepare for elections, among other breakthroughs, our elections will never be the same again and more Nigerians will be encouraged to exercise their franchise, knowing that their votes will count.”