- Jubilation in APC, PDP As Statutory Delegates, Political Chiefs, Others Laud Buhari
Amid extensive pressure from the National Assembly, President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday afternoon May 21, 2022, signed the recently amended 2022 Electoral Act into law.
This development was confirmed by a member of the House of Representatives, Hon Emeka Chinedu, representing the Ahiazu/Ezinihittee Mbaise federal constituency in the House of Representatives.
The New Diplomat gathered that Chinedu confirmed the signing of the Electoral Act to BusinessDay, disclosing that President Buhari signed the bill on Saturday, May 21.
“I can confirm to you that Mr President signed the bill into law this afternoon and we are all happy about it as it will give us and other statutory delegates the power to vote at the primaries.
“The amendment was swiftly done by the National Assembly members to legally provide a place in the Act for statutory delegates of political parties to vote during their congresses and conventions.
“It will indeed do a lot of good for the upcoming party primaries,” he said.
It would be recalled that the Electoral Act has been a bone of contention for a while as elected legislators in both the Senate and the House of Representatives as well as other political figures were unintentionally excluded from voting in their various parties’ primaries going by the provisions of the 2022 electoral act.
Following the omission, both the Senate and House of Representatives had last week convened emergency sessions where they amended the act to provide for statutory delegates to vote and be voted for in the forthcoming political parties’ primaries and conventions.
However, with few days left for the primaries in various political parties to kick-off, politicians have reportedly been pressuring the president to sign the amended Act into Law in order to address growing political concerns as well as avert a likely precarious political tight-rope.
The signing into Law the amended Electoral Act has been hailed by many politicians drawn from both APC and PDP. According to them, this is a commendable move in the right direction by Buhari.
