HDP Deplores Buhari for Withholding Assent to Electoral Act Amendments
Hope Democratic Party has said that the refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the electoral bill intended to aid smooth and credible election in Nigeria portends danger and cast a big pall over the credibility of any election without those commendable reforms.
The party, in a statement signed by My Yusuf Ibrahim, the Director of Publicity for HDP’s presidential candidate Chief Albert Owuru, said Buhari should have signed the amendments to the Electoral Act.
The party said: “To do otherwise will amount to arrogating to himself the duty assigned under the law to the judiciary. It is not his duty to venture into continuous interpreting of any section of the bill duly passed by the National assembly having previously reviewed same.
“His job is to assent to it in the circumstances and under the tensed situation the nation is fac- ing. Any other scrutiny regarding interpretations of any section of the passed bill once assented to becomes an exclusive preserve of the judiciary.”
HDP said it believed that the president was ill-advised inspite of his good intentions adding that the rule of law required that in matters of law making, after the NASS had passed a bill, any technical or grey area that was not apparently injurious to the nation at large, the assent of the president became a necessity and a patriotic duty to save the nation unnecessary acrimony that might be interpreted for personal reasons. It said: “It becomes the duty of the judiciary whenever such issue arises for adjudication or clarification, to do.
“Our great party has been in the front vanguard in championing of this electoral reforms and had strenuously fought in court on these issues with the National Assembly and INEC and in the matter in which the AGF duly represented the presidency.
“This was to ensure that the said electoral reform is entrenched in our body polity as we have made it a pre-condition to participate in future elections that will be devoid of vote stealing, vote buying and swapping of results at coalition canters, unnecessary intimidation and violent thuggery and use of security loyal to the state to announce false election results.”
The party said that Buhari’s refusal to sign the bill was clearly another pointer to the blurred line between the ruling All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party in their methods and tactics and the reason why Nigerians must reject them and their methods and ways.
It said that both APC and PDP had, both in election preparation and governance of the country, exhibited crass incompetence and insensitivity in the affairs of the nation.
It therefore warned Nigerians to reject both the APC and the PDP and the new fear of giving in to any one of them.