Senate President Senator Ahmad Lawan has attributed President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to veto the Electoral Act amendment passed by the 8th Senate to wrong timing, assuring that “this time, we will be quick to address all the grey areas and come out with better inputs.”
The Senate president said this when he received in audience the European Union Elections Observers Mission in Nigeria, led by Ambassador Keitec Karlsen in his office.
Lawan said Nigeria needs urgent reform in its electoral system, pleaded for assistance from the mission stressing that it would strengthen needed reforms.
“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 should continue to be independent and improve to perform its statutory functions creditably well.”
Further, he assured that the 9th National Assembly would make credible and acceptable electoral processes for the country a priority.
Lawan, who gave the assurance Tuesday in Abuja, also expressed confidence that the electoral processes would not only meet the aspirations of Nigerians but international best practices.
He noted that there was no doubt that stakeholders in election processes have lessons to learn from every election in the country, even as said that the federal government would equally prioritized electioneering process.
Lawan lauded the mission’s report and recommendations on the 2019 general elections noting: “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 more better electoral processes.”
He requested the full report of the mission to enable the National Assembly to carry out an in-depth study of the document, also requested for more collaboration with the mission.
In particular, he appealed to then mission to help in building capacity of members of Nigerian parliament.
Karlsen who said that Nigeria is an important partner of the European Union added that as an old friend and close ally in terms of economy, job creation, migration and other key areas, EU will continue to work with Nigeria.
He said that INEC invited them as a monitoring body in the last elections.
He said the EU Observers visited hundreds of polling stations in the country during the polls, affirming that the exercise afforded them the chance to observe and appraise the exercise.
