Senate modifies Electoral act to allow president, governors, others vote at party congresses, primaries

The Senate amended the Electoral Act of 2022 on Tuesday to allow ‘statutory delegates’ – all those elected – to participate and vote in political party conventions, congresses, or meetings.

This came after an expeditious consideration of a bill during plenary that scaled first, second, and third readings, respectively, and was passed by lawmakers after consideration by the Committee of the Whole.

The President, Vice President, members of the National Assembly, governors and their deputies, members of the State Houses of Assembly, chairmen of councils, councillors, and national working committees of political parties are among those identified as statutory delegates.

The Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, who sponsored the ‘Bill to amend the 2022 Electoral Act No. 13,’ stated in his presentation that it seeks to amend the provision of Section 84(8) of the law.

According to him, the section “does not provide for the participation of what is commonly known as’statutory delegates’ in political party conventions, congresses, or meetings.”

“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.

In his remarks after the bill was passed, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, said the amendment became imperative in view of the deficiency created by the provision of section 84(8) of the extant Act.

“The amended Electoral Act of 2022 that we passed this year had 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 this amendment of this bill, between today (in the Senate) and tomorrow (in the House of Representatives), and then the Executive will do the assent.”

The Senate President added, “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 councils 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.”