Electoral Act: UPN backs Buhari

The Forum of Presidential Candidates has thrown its weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari for declining assent to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2018.

Rising from a consultative meeting hurriedly convened yesterday to review recent developments in the polity, the 40 presidential aspirants in the forum, said they supported the position of President Buhari because “the time is obviously inauspicious to thinker with the Electoral Bill, especially when the process leading to the 2019 general elections is already fully on course.”

In a statement signed by the presidential candidate of Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), Alhaji Shitu Mohammed Kabir, and presidential candidate of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), Mallam Danjuma Muhammad, the forum said its earlier position had been vindicated that the amendment bill contained “deliberate hurdles” capable of derailing the 2019 general elections.

Meanwhile, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) has expressed support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to withhold assent on the amended Electoral Act.

A statement issued in Sokoto by the UPN National Secretary and Director General of the party’s presidential campaign, Alhaji Abubakar Abdullahi, criticised the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) for threatening to boycott the 2019 general elections if the president declined to sign the electoral act into law.