Three
presidential candidates go to court to stop Buhari signing the bill
The
Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar presidential campaigns were yesterday
locked in an exchange of words over alleged plans to rig the forthcoming 2019
elections with mutual accusations of paying lip service to a reinforced
Electoral Act.
The
bickering came as three presidential candidates launched a judicial process to
stop President Buhari from signing the Electoral Act amendment bill. The
accusations followed the continued procrastination on a presidential assent to
the amended Electoral Act. The bill passed by the two chambers of the National
Assembly gives a legal framework to the use of the card reader and electronic
transmission of votes across the country. The reworked bill was forwarded to
the president for assent about two weeks ago.
Yesterday
the two campaigns were locked in an exchange of words on the issue with the two
claiming the moral high ground. Meanwhile, a former deputy national publicity
secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Timi Frank yesterday
called on the United Nations, European Union and the General Abdulsalami
Abubakar National Peace Committee to urge President Buhari to sign the
Electoral Act Amendment Bill for the purpose of enthroning a strong framework
to guide the election. Meanwhile, Alhaji Shitu Mohammed Kabir the presidential
candidate of the Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance, APDA, joined by the
presidential candidates of the Allied Peoples Mandate (APM) and the Movement
for Restoration and Defence of Democracy, (MRDD) yesterday said that signing
the Bill would truncate the 2019 General Election. Speaking with journalists
yesterday in Abuja after filing the process on behalf of his clients, counsel
to the plaintiffs, Mr Dapo Otitoju said they were asking the court to determine
whether the president could proceed to sign the bill when there was no more
adequate time for the manifestation of the proposed Act. Dismissing
insinuations of Buhari’s hesitance to sign the Electoral Act amendment bill,
spokesman of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN told
Vanguard yesterday that Buhari and the APC were before the 2015 election the
strongest supporters of the card reader which has now turned into the central
issue in the debate. He accused the PDP and the Atiku Campaign of supporting
what he alleged as a plot by the National Assembly to remove the card reader
from the penultimate bill that was sent to the president.
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