The Senate, on Tuesday, passed an amendment to Section 84(8) of the Electoral Act 2022.
With the development, all statutory delegates are now allowed to participate and vote in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties registered in the country.
This was sequel to the prayers made by Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, seeking the amendment of the 2022 Electoral Act No. 13.
Omo-Agege, in his presentation of the bill, said the amendment of the provision of section 84(8) of the Electoral Act, became necessary as the Senate unintentionally omitted the statutory delegates from the version of the Act assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari in February, this year.
Statutory delegates include councillors, local government chairmen and their deputy, political party chairmen in all the 774 local government areas.
They also included state and federal legislators, governors and their deputies, president and vice-president.
According to Senator Omo-Agege, who represents Delta Central, the provisions of the section “does not provide for the participation of what is generally known as ‘statutory delegates’ in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties.”
“The extant section only clearly provides for the participation of elected delegates in the conventions, congresses or meetings of political parties held to nominate candidates of political parties.
“This is an unintended error, and we can only correct it with this amendment now before us”, the Deputy Senate President said.
Following the argument, the Senate unanimously passed the amendment.
The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, in his remarks, said that the amendment became imperative in view of the deficiency created by the provision of Section 84(8) of the extant Act.
In his words, “The amended Electoral Act of 2022 that we passed this year, has a deficiency that was never intended and that deficiency will deny all statutory delegates in all political parties from participation in congresses and conventions.
“And, therefore, such a major and unintended clause has to be amended before the party primaries start in the next eight days. This is emergency legislation, so to speak.
“Our expectation is that the National Assembly – the two chambers – would finish with the processing of the amendment of this bill between today (in the Senate) and tomorrow (in the House of Representatives), and then the Executive will do the assent.
“That is so important to enable every statutory delegate to participate in the party primaries right from the beginning that will start on the 18th of May, 2022.
“So, this is an emergency effort to ensure that nobody is denied his or her rightful opportunity as a delegate, especially the statutory delegates, and these are those who are elected.
“These are the President, Vice President, Members of the National Assembly, Governors, Members of the State Houses of Assembly, Chairmen of Council and their Councillors, National Working Committee Members of all the political parties and so on.
“This is a fundamental effort to ensure that we address this within the week, so that by next week, the Electoral Act, 2022 (amended version), will be very salutary for us to start our party primaries.”
The Act, before the amendments had prevented statutory delegates from voting during party primaries.
