The federal lawmakers have promised to complete legislative work on the new electoral laws before the end of first quarter of 2021.
Senate President Ahmed Lawan, who dropped the hint, yesterday, while declaring a joint public hearing open, said the proposed bills to repeal the Electoral Act No 6 2010 for a more comprehensive one and enact the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Act 2020, would be passed before the end of first quarter of 2021.
He said more than 85 requests made by various stakeholders for amendments would be critically looked into to give Nigerians more credible electoral process.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, in his own remarks said the proposed amendments to the electoral laws were very important for both politics and governance in Nigeria.
“Until we fix the way we do politics in Nigeria, we cannot fix the way we run government,” he said.
The Chairman, House Committee on Electoral Matters, Aishatu Jibril Dukku, while speaking on the provisions of the Electoral Act amendment bill currently being considered by the National Assembly especially those in Section 49 of the 2010 Electoral Act, said the use of functional card readers for election to take place in each of the polling units in Nigeria would be made compulsory in future elections.
Card readers as electronic device for accreditation of eligible voters at the polling units was introduced in 2015 general elections but not made compulsory for election to take place in the event of malfunctioning.
The 2010 Electoral Act as amended in 2015 gave room for usage of manual voters registers after filling of index form.
According to Dukku, a new subsection (3) is introduced, which provides thus: “Where a smart card reader deployed for accreditation of voters fails to function in any unit and a fresh card reader is not deployed, the election in that unit shall be cancelled and another election shall be scheduled within 24 hours”.
The proposed amendment in Section 52(2) states: “In 2015, this section was amended to give INEC the discretion to determine the procedure for voting.”
“Now, it seeks to further amend the provision to allow the commission to conduct elections by electronic voting or any other method of voting as it may deem fit”.
Section 63(4) of the proposed laws makes provision for transmission of election conducted at each of the polling units to the first level of collation of results to which the polling unit belongs in the constituency where the election is held.
Others are that expenses to be made by any presidential candidate should not exceed N5bn, gubernatorial candidates N1bn, senatorial candidates N100m and House of Representatives candidates N70m.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has called for the full digitalization of the nation’s electoral system.
CDD Director Idayat Hassan, yesterday, told the National Assembly Joint Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to consider the suggestion in the interest of democratic and national development.
