- The leadership of INEC will meet with leaders of political parties this week, concerning the 2019 elections and specifically about the unsigned Electoral Bill
- The development was confirmed by the first national spokesperson for the Coalition of United Political Parties, Imo Ugochinyere
- The spokesman further outlined what the electoral commission can do, with or without the president
Ahead of the 2019 general election, the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will hold a crucial meeting with the leaders of political parties, this week.
Topping the agenda of the planned meeting, will be the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to withhold assent to the Electoral Act (Amended) Bill 2018, Punch reports.
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Legit.ng gathers that there is fear within the ranks of opposition parties, that the National Assembly as currently constituted might not get the required number of members to override Buhari on the rejected bill, despite threats by some lawmakers to do so.
In order to find a way out, the lawmakers have reportedly resolved to look beyond the parliament.
The development was confirmed by the first national spokesperson for the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), Imo Ugochinyere, on Saturday, December 8.
He said: “The leadership of political parties will be meeting with INEC this week and top on the agenda of the meeting is that now that the president has refused to sign, it is now left for the electoral commission.
“There are some powers given to the commission under the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act to ensure free and fair conduct of elections.
“There are some provisions that INEC can amend the election guidelines with or without the president signing the law. Some of them include the use of card readers like the commission did in Ekiti and Osun states.
“You can see that the number of voters did not skyrocket in those states because INEC did not use incident forms.
“INEC can also allow agents to have access to electoral materials, verify them and even do video recording of the materials without any law.
“The issue of ensuring that no result is announced without agents of political parties being present at the spot, stopping the police and soldiers from chasing away party agents so that they can doctor the results, the issue of ensuring that results are announced at every polling unit, the issue of collecting electronic results by INEC to compare, issue of serialising ballot papers for each polling unit, all these the INEC can do with or without the president.
“The first thing the INEC chairman must do, or else all political parties will pull out of the election, is that he has to announce to Nigerians that there will be no use of incident forms.”
According to Ugochinyere, the non-use of incident forms was important to avoid a repeat of what allegedly happened in 2015, when “out of the over seven million votes he (Buhari) got from the north-west, over five million came from incident forms.”
The CUPP spokesman further claimed that most of the people who voted for Buhari in the north-west were not accredited.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Senate was allegedly plotting to override President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to withdraw assent to the 2018 Electoral Act amendment bill for the third time.
The president’s decision had polarised the Senate along party lines with All Progressives Congress lawmakers supporting the president while the opposition Peoples Democratic Party claimed there was an ulterior motive.
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Source: Legit.ng
