APC governors behind Buhari’s reluctance to sign Electoral Bill – Falana

Human Rights Activist, Femi Falana (SAN) on Wednesday said the some “powerful governors and politicians” are behind President Muhammadu Buhari’s reluctance to sign the Electoral Amendment Bill.

Falana made this claim in his address at TheCable Colloquium in Lagos.

According to him, pressure from some governors in the All Progressives Congress (APC) who are worried about certain amendments in the Electoral Act might have affected the President’s decision.

The National Assembly is empowered by the 1999 Constitution to override Buhari by a two-thirds vote if the President refuses to sign the bill after 30 days.

The parliament forwarded the Electoral Act Amendment Bill to President Buhari on November 20.

The deadline for the presidential assent to the bill is December 19.

Falana said: “The President is reluctant to give assent to the bill because the powerful governors in his party, the ruling party, are saying it is going to be much more expensive for them to run direct primaries.

“Therefore, throw away the baby and the bathwater. But where they’re actually going is that those governors have not recovered from the shock of having an electronic vote. They know manipulation will be reduced to the minimum.

“That’s why they are asking the President to throw away that bill. They aren’t saying ‘take it back to the National Assembly so that the area of direct primaries can be removed’.

“The bill can be rejected only on one ground. The 2020 bill was rejected by the President on the ground that it was too close to the 2020 election. Now, the President may also say signing this bill now may be too close to the election and might cause confusion.”