See What Oby Ezekwesili Said After President Buhari Rejected Electoral Amendment Bill

The Presidential Candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Mrs Obiageli Ezekwesili, says the latest rejection of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill by President Muhammadu Buhari is an assault on the country’s democracy.

The last 19 years have not given Nigerians an aggregate top quality of political actors, and the strength of a rallying vision for nation building that are necessary to produce material governance results and experiences for majority of Nigerians. We deserve better. #Fight4Naija

— Oby Ezekwesili (@obyezeks) December 11, 2018

Naija News learnt that, Ezekwesili, at a press conference in Abuja yesterday called on the President to rescind his decision, warning that it was capable of destabilising the country.

She said, “As a candidate in the 2019 election for the Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I have called this emergency press conference in order to let the world know that President Buhari’s action is contrary to the tenets of our democracy.”

“President Muhammadu Buhari is, therefore, called upon to immediately reconsider his latest, fourth, rejection of the Electoral Amendment Bill 2018 that was transmitted to him by the National Assembly to be signed into law.”

So Dr Goodluck E. Jonathan assented to the Electoral Amendment 2015 on March 26, 2015, two days before the 2015 polls! What stop president Buhari from assent to the bill? Is he afraid to be voted out. pic.twitter.com/GlzoxgRhel

— Alabi Arvin (@alabi_arvin) December 10, 2018

President Buhari had rejected the bill for a fourth time last week, saying among other things that signing the bill into law so close to the country’s general elections might cause confusion and lead to the disruption of the polls, Naija News reports.

In a letter dated December 6, he asked the National Assembly to make some adjustments to the bill and specify that the amendments to the Act would come into effect and be applicable to elections commencing after the 2019 polls.

But Ezekwesili rejected the President’s reasons for withholding his assent to the bill and urged all Nigerians to do the same.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the excuses of the President for not completing the process that will give Nigeria one of the soundest electoral laws in the world is an assault on our democracy and must be rejected roundly by all Nigerians,” she said.

“Mr President is dangerously setting up the country and the people for political destabilisation in 2019. Nothing of the excuses of President Muhammadu Buhari that there are observed errors when he, for the fourth time, sent the bill back to the National Assembly has any iota of credibility nor evidential persuasion for the Nigerian electorate.”

Buhari inaugurated the Ken Nnamani electoral reform committee in 2016

The committee submitted its report in May 2017 and it recommended the amendment of the electoral act

Buhari has declined assent to the amended electoral act bill because he don't want it to be used in 2019

— nafeeu 🇺🇦 (@nafeezi) December 8, 2018