PYB 2023 Support Group has backed President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to sign the Electoral Bill.

At a briefing held in Lagos recently, the group’s chairman, Prince Ayodele Adewunmi, and secretary, Ekundayo Soyoye, described direct primaries as a “retrogressive way” to elect leaders, adding that the country cannot afford to “think backwards when the world has moved on.”

According to the group, direct primaries will be too expensive, insecure and might create a legal battle, which only the mighty will be able to finance.

This, the group said, will lead to those who have wealth of ideas but lack of funds to lose the privilege to contest.

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He said: “We agree with President Buhari that the Electoral Bill is too much a wage bill on the economy in a period where there is mass hardship and want amid the poor. How can a poor emerge in a direct primary where the rich would he on ground with so much wealth to throw around? A real candidate should be chosen by delegates who believe in the ideas of the masses and not the victims who can be swayed and coerced by what we generally lack by.

“We stand with the President over the fact that those agitating for direct primaries are insensitive towards the current threatening realities of Omicron, which global health experts have declared as a variant of COVID-19 and, therefore, a threat to the universal well-being of all humans.”

The group called on Nigerians to stand with the President as he would be taking “wishes and decisive notes” on the bill in the interest of all.

“We commend all our lawmakers for conceding to the party’s national leader, which President Muhammadu Buhari is. We thank them for not being unpatriotic by vetoing the President’s decision. Our lawmakers must never allow distracters to come between them and our beloved numero uno son of the Katsina homeland.”