Saraki & Buhari. |
Senate
President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki has advised President Muhammadu Buhari
not to heed the advice of the anti-democratic elements who have now populated
the political space and putting pressure on him not to give assent to the 2018
Electoral Bill.
Saraki in a
statement in Ilorin today (Wednesday) signed by his Special Adviser (Media and
Publicity), Yusuph Olaniyonu, urged the President to rise above petty politics
and act without further delay in the best interest of the country and its
democracy by signing the Electoral Bill into law.
Saraki noted
that he had been inundated with telephone calls and discussions by members of
the National Assembly who expressed concern about the delay in the signing into
law of the Electoral Bill as the one month period provided by the law for the
President to sign a bill presented to him by the National Assembly is about to
expire in the next few days.
He added that
many of the legislators who contacted him were particularly disturbed that
certain individuals who are said to be chairmen of political parties had
approached the Federal High Court to stop the President from assenting to the
bill.
He noted that
the jaded tactic employed in the 90s to scuttle the return to democracy when
groups like the Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) went to court to frustrate
the announcement of the results of the June 12, 1993 elections is now being
adopted by some masked groups and individuals to stop the signing into law of
the Electoral Bill.
He urged
President Buhari to dissociate himself from these ugly antics and sign the bill
which he said has comprehensively addressed issues that usually clog the
process of free, fair, credible and peaceful elections.
“ It is the
prerogative of the President to either sign a Bill into law or refuse it
assent. He is free to exercise this prerogative the way he likes in this case.
What I found surprising is a situation where some people now want to adopt a
wrong tactic of abusing the court process to stall the matter. That will be
unacceptable and I am sure our judiciary will rely on the lessons from the past
and not allow itself to be used.
“We do not want
the President to allow the setting of a bad precedent in which somebody will go
to court in future to stop the passage of an appropriation bill or any
essential law which will be important to the development of the country.
“My position
remains that the President, his aides, the entire country and the international
community are aware that all the concerns raised by the President on the past
three occasions he withheld assent to the bill have been addressed by the
legislature. We bent backwards on each occasion to accommodate the wishes of
the President. We started work on this law since 2016 to prevent a situation
where it would become part of the election controversies.
“Every sincere
commentator, observer and analyst knows that what we have done with that bill
is to raise the level of transparency, credibility and acceptability of our
electoral process. We made sure that the law if assented to and honestly
applied by INEC and all those concerned will give us an election that will be
better than what we had in 2015.
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