The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Monday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the 2021 Electoral Act Amendment Bill passed by the National Assembly. This was contained in a statement issued by the National President of the congress Comrade Ayuba Wabba. He said the NLC supports the amendment by the National Assembly in respect of direct primaries to select flag-bearers by political parties and the use of technology in the conduct of general elections. He said majority of Nigerians are of the view that 2021 amendments to the Electoral Act was one of the most progressive enactments that the country has had in recent times. “This is also the view of the NLC. The leadership of the congress commends the House of Representatives and the Senate particularly the leadership. ”Also those who stood rock solid behind the proposal for direct primaries for all political parties and rallied their colleagues in the House and the Senate to pass the bill into law. ”This is the proof of committed leadership and true statesmanship.
The congress must, however, caution that the passage of the 2021 amendment to the Electoral Act is only a journey and not a destination. ”A lot more certainly needs to be done in order to fully sanitise Nigeria’s challenged electioneering system, especially building on the 2007 to 2011 electoral reforms which the NLC actively participated in. ”First is to tackle the menace of god fatherism, ‘god motherism’ and money politics which were the major concerns that necessitated the new law on direct primaries for all political parties. ”Due diligence and oversight must be applied to ensure that unscrupulous politicians who have been cultured to vote buying, monetisation of Nigeria’s electoral process are not allowed to extend their habitual criminal subversion of our democracy during political party primary elections,” he said. The NLC President also stressed the need for members of the National Assembly to establish Electoral Offences Commission to deal with election-related matters expeditiously. “We recommend that the National Assembly should expeditiously consider developing a bill for the establishment of the Electoral Offences Commission. ”On the full mainstreaming of the use of technology in our electoral law, we urge all stakeholders, especially INEC to continue to constructively engage the Nigerian people to ensure that the lessons from recent and remote deployment of technology during elections are not lost. ”Particularly, we call for confidence building measures by INEC, particularly through voter education and sensitisation. ”It is also important that the security of the software and hardware components of technology to be deployed for elections should be well scrutinised and reviewed by all stakeholders. ”This is to guard against significant failures and to facilitate public ownership,” Mr Wabba said. “By returning internal party democracy to the people through direct primaries, it appeared that democracy in Nigeria was about to live up to its fullest and truest meaning,” he said.
