9th NASS to enhance electoral reforms – Lawan

…Says Nigeria desires credible electoral system that can stand test of international best practices

…’9th Senate ready to work together with development partners’

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has assured of the readiness of the 9th National Assembly to enhance the much desired reformation of the nation’s electoral process.

He said this is necessary as the entire country desires credible electoral system that can stand the test of international best practices.

Lawan said this on Tuesday while welcoming to the National Assembly, a delegation of the European Union (EU) that came to present the report of its Election Observation Mission (EOM) on the 2019 general election to the parliament.

He said Nigerian government considered electioneering process of great importance, saying stakeholders in elections processes have lessons to learn from every election.

He applauded the European Union Mission for the recommendations provided on the last elections.

He said: “Your visit today is historic as the number one visit to my office after elections of the Presiding officers of the 9th Assembly.

“What can be more important than meeting with elections observers from the European Union? We consider our elections of great importance, we have lessons to learn and we want our elections to be credible and meet with best practices.

“The National Assembly has always worked hard on electoral Act to ensure that we improve on the standard, your recommendations will fire us to a better electoral process.”

He pointed out that wrong timing was responsible when the amendment was earlier sorted, adding, “This time, we will be quick to address all the grey areas and come out with better inputs.”

The President of the Senate seized the opportunity of the visit to request more collaboration with the European Union in the area of capacity building of members of the Nigerian parliament.

His words: “We need to see an improvement in our electoral system; we solicit for your support to further boost knowledge of our members and Committees relevant to this course.

“We in the 9th Assembly will continue to work in a committed and united manner to offer the best to the electorate.

“INEC is one institution that has always been supported by the National Assembly. They also require more support and resources, the resources available are not enough for the enormous tasks. Our desire is that our electoral empire continue to be independent and improve to perform the statutory functions creditably well.” he said.

He promised that the Senate will look at recommendations made by the EU observers in line with lessons learnt from the outcome of the recent elections with the aim of improving upon the process through urgent legislative interventions before the 2013 general election.

While appreciating the continuous support of the European Union in deepening Nigerian electoral process and democracy, the Senate President said as the 9th Senate ” we are ready to listen to development partners as we are prepared to work together with them”.

Presenting the report on behalf of Maria Arena, Chief Observer of EOM, her deputy, Hannah Roberts said the report will hopefully be of interest to Nigeria and wished the government can implement most of the 30 recommendations contained in the document.

She said larger part of the recommendations requires legal and legislative reformation, stressing that the Senate under Lawan should give legislative strength to efforts of the government towards reformation.

Earlier, the leader of the EU Elections Observers Mission in Nigeria, Ambassador Keith Karlsen congratulated the President of the Senate for his election as the 9th Chairman of the National Assembly assuring that the EU will continue to strengthen the collaboration with Nigeria.

Karlsen said Nigeria is an important partner of the European Union adding that as an old friend and close ally in terms of economy, job creation, migration and other key areas, EU will continue to work shoulder by shoulder with Nigeria.

He said INEC invited the EU EOM as monitoring body in the last elections, saying as independent observers, EU visited hundreds of polling stations in the country during the polls, affirming that the exercise afforded the observers to see events on self appraisals.

Karlsen added that the reports were to correct anomalies in elections so that such inadequacies would not be repeated in the future.

He called on the National Assembly to engage in an inclusive debate and dialogues in order to arrive at a more promising electoral system.