By The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina has said President Muhammadu Buhari will sign the re-worked Electoral Act Amendment Bill in a matter of hours.
Adesina made this known during an interview on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Tuesday.
“He (Buhari) will sign it (the bill) any moment from now. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be anytime, but within the 30 days,” he said.
“It could be signed today; it could be signed tomorrow. In a matter of hours, not days. Hours could be 24 hours, it could be 48 hours; not days, not weeks.”
This comes nearly a month after lawmakers in the both chambers of the National Assembly passed the harmonised version of the bill on January 25.
A week after, the bill was transmitted to the President. Buhari, however, has refused to give his assent weeks after receiving the bill. This decision has since generated mixed reactions from Nigerians who berated the President for delaying the signing of the bill.
In November 2021, Buhari had withheld his assent to the bill, citing the cost of conducting direct primary elections, security challenges, and possible manipulation of electoral processes by political players as part of the reasons for his decision.
The House would later re-amend the bill to include the direct and indirect primary options, the Senate re-adjusted to include the direct, indirect, and consensus modes of selecting political parties’ candidates.
Afterwards, both chambers passed the harmonised version – the final agreed version of the amendment to Clause 84 of the bill. This included the direct, indirect, and consensus primary modes of nominating candidates by political parties for elections.
