ABUJA—There are moves by the National Assembly to amend the 2022 Electoral Act to allow statutory delegates to participate in party primaries.
President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who disclosed this in an audience with the national leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja yesterday, assured that statutory delegates would participate in party primaries next year.
He said the omission of statutory delegates from the primaries of political parties in the 2022 Electoral Act was a costly mistake that must be corrected before the next round of general elections.
Akpabio, who also urged the leadership of NBA to weed out quacks from the legal profession, said: “There were defects in the last Electoral Act that was amended. So, we want to cure some of the defects that we found in our electoral system. I can tell you one.
“Without any particular intention from the Parliament, in the 2023 elections and the 2022 primaries, we inadvertently created what I may call super-delegates.
“Because all the statutory delegates, starting from the president, the vice president, governors, deputy governors, the Senate president, Deputy Senate President, speaker, deputy speaker, members of parliament (national and sub-national), chairmen of councils, and all, were omitted as delegates.
“These are areas we think we can look at in order to make our democracy more participatory because democracy is all about numbers.
“We ended up at a national level bringing out the President. We had about 2,380, because we had 3,000 people in each of the local government areas omitted from the amendment.
“It meant that all others, unless you contested to be an ad hoc delegate, were not welcome at the primaries to select flag bearers of the legislative houses, governorship, and, of course, flag bearer of the presidential conventions in all the political parties across the country.
“We shall also look at the powers we gave to INEC because at the time, it looked as if INEC was the last arbiter as to who decides who is a candidate and not the political parties.
“So, we now have to look up to INEC to decide whether to take the name or not to take the name. I believe strongly that political parties should have the power to select their candidates who will best serve their manifestos, have the integrity to represent their people, and a track record of performance to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people.”
“These are areas we are looking at in the Electoral Act.”
Earlier in his remarks, the National President of NBA, Afam Osigwe, SAN, who asked the Senate President to ensure the National Assembly, in the ongoing constitution amendment, brings about justice sector reform in the country, cited an example of one of the quacks he caught at the Igbosere Magistrate Court in Lagos in the early 1990s, having earlier known the quack to have studied history at the University of Calabar where he claimed to have read law.
