• Saraki to meet CJN over court order stopping Electoral Act amendment
Fred Itua, Abuja
Fresh indications have emerged that both chambers of the National Assembly are in one accord to override President Muhammadu Buhari’s veto of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2018.
The new agreement was allegedly the outcome of an interface between Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, on Wednesday, in Abuja.
Spokesman of the lower legislative chamber, Abdulrazak Namdas, had told newsmen on Wednesday that the House would re-introduce the rejected bill, and resend to Buhari for assent.
While the House had planned to revisit the bill, Senate on the hand, informally declared that it would go ahead with the planned override of Buhari’s veto.
Regardless, it was learnt that the planned re-introduction of the bill at next Tuesday’s plenary, in the House of Representatives has been jettisoned. Rather, consultations are ongoing with the upper chamber on how to coordinate the planned override.
It was gathered that as soon as Saraki received the correspondence refusing assent to the bill from Buhari on Monday, he mandated the Legal Department of the National Assembly to verify if the constitutional questions raised by the President were valid.
The department submitted a report to Saraki on Wednesday evening.
In its report three-page report, the department countered the three issues raised by Buhari.
“The president claims that the amendment introducing a specific sequence for elections under section 25 of the Principal Act 2010 infringed the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission to, ”organise, undertake and supervise elections.”
“This argument is flawed because the correct legal position, however, is that by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, First Alteration Act 2010, Act No. 1, specifically, section 5 provides that “section 76 of the Principal Act is altered thus (a)subsection (1) in line 2, by inserting immediately after the word ’commission’ ’the words’ ’in accordance with the Electoral Act.
“From the above amendment, it is crystal clear that the power to regulate the principal elements of all federal electoral process were expressed by the above amendement, removed from the INEC and vested in the National Assembly, which has the power to make laws for peace, order and good governance” of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and any part thereof.
“Furthermore, the phrases ‘organise, undertake and supervise’ elections under section 15 (a) of the 3rd Schedule to the constitution, according to the president, allegedly infringed the discretion guarranteed to lNEC by section 25 of the of the Principal Act.
“The argument of the president that the sequencing of the elections under section 25 infringed the discretion of INEC without expressly pointing out what specific aspects or ways and manner cannot be a basis for legal or constitutional argument or decision.
“With due respect, the opinion expressed is too general to establish a basis for the exercise of a legal or constitutional power more so because ‘discretion’ is a principle governed by the rules of Administrative Law and not that of constitutional Law which the president claimed to have anchored his arguments.
“Thirdly, the terms “organise, undertake and supervise” may have conferred a wide discretion on lNEC in matters of all logistics in the preparation and conduct of elections, the issue of discretion only comes to fore in the actual details of the preparation, organising and conducting elections.
“It is respectfully submitted that the sequencing of the elections in a bill, as to which was scheduled as first or last in the conduct does not in any way hamper of affect the discretion and capacity of INEC to organise, undertake and conduct these elections into various constitutional offices provided. The new subsection (3) introduced into section 138 of the Electoral Act, which the president argued repealed two crucial grounds upon which elections could be challenged is not entirely correct and the view could be misplaced for the following reason: The new subsection (3) to section 138 actually clarifies the ambiguity contained in subsection 1 of the Principal Act and reinforces the constitutional standards specified in Sections 65, 106, 131 and 177 of the constitution.
“In addition, it further provides that no person shall be qualified to contest elections in breach of any of the sections 66, 107, 137 or 182 of the constitution.
“The amendment to section 152 (3) (5), which collectively imposed an obligation on the State Independent Electoral Commissions to apply the standard of ‘free, fair and credible elections in the conduct of local government elections’ is within the competence of the National Assembly to make laws, in respect of the procedure regulating elections into local governments, in accordance with item 11 of the Concurrent Legislative List of the 1999 constitution, as amended.
“What specific aspects or ways and manner cannot be a basis for legal or constitutional argument or decision. With due respect, the opinion expressed is too general to establish a basis for the exercise of a legal or constitutional power more so because ”discretion” is a principle governed by the rules of Administrative Law and not that of Constitutional Law which the president claimed to have anchored his arguments,” it further read.
Meanwhile, Senate has opposed a Federal High Court’s order stopping the National Assembly from taking further action on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill. The resolution was sequel to the adoption of a point of order raised by the Minority Leader of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio.
Relying on Order 45 of the Senate Standing Rules, Akpabio urged Senate to write the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen to intimate him of the development and remind him of the principle of separation of powers.