Despite the ravaging global COVID-19 pandemic, politics was at its best in 2020 across the world. For the first time in almost 30 years, a sitting United States president lost a re-election bid. The United Kingdom finally exited the European Union. Ghana re-elected its president for another term of four years. Many other countries were engaged in one political assignment or the other. Nigeria was not exempted. Two state governorship elections were held, while inter-party and intra-party palaver dominated the political space.
With 2021 just beginning, there are clear signs that more political activities and party squabbles may still take the centre stage. With 2023 general elections barely two years away, zoning by the two dominant political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), will be addressed.
The eighth National Assembly had passed the bill and transmitted it to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.
But Buhari withheld his assent to the bill on the grounds that the proposed law would usurp the constitutional powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to decide on election matters and would create “some uncertainty about the legislation to govern the process”.
The CSOs said the ninth assembly under the leadership of Ahmad Lawan, senate president, and Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house of representatives, promised Nigerians a new electoral law by the first quarter of 2021.
“We rely on the leadership of the National Assembly to ensure that this goal is achieved. We hold the National Assembly to its commitment to release the proposed bill this first quarter of 2021,” they said.
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It said that would reduce the prevalence of violence in the elections and reduce the cost of conducting it.
The coalition, which made its submissions known in a nine-point memorandum to the National Assembly, included YIAGA Africa, Centre for Liberty, NESSACTION, Raising New Voices and Millennials Active Citizenship Advocacy Africa.
According to the coalition, conducting elections for several days caused economic stagnation.
“Research has shown that crucial economic activities are delayed and affected due to the long duration of the conduct of elections. Our foreign direct and portfolio investments witness severe decline in the buildup and during the elections,” it said.
By Luminous Jannamike ABUJA
A group of civil society organisations, CSOs, on the platform of the Coalition for Constitutional and Electoral Reforms, Sunday, called on the National Assembly to give Nigerians a New Year gift by ensuring the passage of the electoral amendment bill at first sitting in 2021.
The CSOs said that it was sad that the much-anticipated December 2020 target for the passage and transmission of the bill for assent by the President was missed.
Against that backdrop, the coalition stressed the need to have the electoral bill passed and signed this month, adding that doing so was instructive, so that it could be tested and used in good time for the 2021 Anambra governorship election.