Reps alters INEC’s timetable, changes election sequence, amends Electoral Act

By Ihesiulo Grace 24 January 2018 23 No comment

*Favours N/Assembly, gubernatorial, state assemblies, presidential polls

The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to change the order of elections in the country, thereby altering the dates and timetable recently released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the 2019 general elections.

Following yesterday’s amendment of the Electoral Act by the House , the lawmakers are proposing that the conduct of National Assembly election should comes first, to be followed by the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections while the presidential election should be conducted last.

The House at a Committee of the Whole, chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Hon Yussuff Lasun, passed the decisions, while considering the report of its Committee on Electoral and Political Party Matters on a bill to further amend the Electoral Act, 2010,

Presently, based on the election sequence released by INEC, the Presidential and National Assembly elections takes place first on the same date with the governorship and state Houses of Assembly coming last. In passing the amendments, the House substituted the content of the provisions of Section 25 of the extant Act, by changing the order of elections in the country.

The Daily Times reports that even though the 2010 Electoral Act makes provision for the conduct of elections into the affected offices, the Act however left the powers to determine the order as well as dates of elections with the INEC.

Therefore, in complying with the law, INEC had the previous week scheduled the 2019 presidential and National Assembly elections for Saturday, February 16, while the governorship and state assemblies and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) area council elections were fixed for Saturday, March 2, 2019.

Furthermore, the new amendment approved by the House altered Section 87(11a) of the extant Act, to outline sequence for the conduct of political parties’ primaries in this order, state House of Assembly, National Assembly, governorship and presidential.

The House resolved that dates for the various primaries “shall not be earlier than 120 days and not later than 90 days before the date of elections to the offices”.

Similarly, a new Section 143 has also been introduced to the Act, to give protection to office occupants whose elections may be nullified owing to the process of the primary election that brought them on board.

The new section reads thus, “Where the nomination of an elected candidate is nullified by the court and notice of appeal against the decision is given within the stipulated period for appeal, the elected candidate shall, not withstanding the contrary decision of the court remain in the office pending the determination of the appeal.

“If the court determines that the candidate was not validly nominated, the elected candidate, shall notwithstanding the contrary decision of the court remain in office within the period an appeal may be filed and shall not be sanctioned for the benefits he derived while in office pursuant to this section”.

The Act has also made provisions to the effect that where a nominated candidate of a political party dies before, or withdraws from the race, his/her political party shall within seven days, conduct a fresh primary to replace such a candidate.

Henry Omunu, Abuja