All Progressives Congress (APC) Enugu State governorship candidate, Senator Ayogu Eze, has applauded President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to assent to to the amended Electoral Bill, saying it was done in the interest of Nigeria’s democracy.
The senator said signing the amended Act barely two months to the 2019 general elections would have created confusion in the country’s legal system.
Eze, who currently represents Enugu North senatorial district, added that whatever the amended bill sought to achieve, had already been addressed in other areas either administratively or legally.
Speaking yesterday at APC national secretariat in Abuja, the candidate backs Buhari’s action, adding that he was shocked that some persons had even expected the law to take effect from the 2019 general elections.
“I am totally in support of President Buhari on his refusal to sign the amended electoral bill because signing the law and keeping it in the locker could create a lot of confusion because after every elections, there will always be litigations going by the Nigerian standard and you will never know who will go out and pull out a law that is not in operation and then begin to site it and create confusion in our legal system.
“For the avoidance of doubt, nobody would have even expected that the law would have governed the 2019 elections because by the time it must have passed, the electoral process was already afoot.
“Everything had already started, political parties had already selected their candidates, who had already been identified by INEC. So, you cannot change the rule of the game while it is in progress. That is what has exactly happened.
“I was surprised that some Nigerians had expected the law, which was passed after the process had started to be applied in this election, it would have been an aberration.
“What then are you going to tell political parties that have already selected their candidates? Then, provisions of the constitution, which the electoral act is subservient, specifies the number of days the process of electing candidates must commence and that process has already commenced.
Further, Eze said no one should have expected the immediate implementation of the law starting with bthe 2019 elections, he said: “It would be hypocritical for anybody to think that that particular electoral act will apply in this election.
“Well, some of the issues they have tried to address were already addressed in several other areas either administratively of legally. INEC has already been using the card reader, which was one of the things that law was meant to capture.”
