Tag: Electoral Act
-
8 Things you should know about National Assembly’s amendment to electoral act
On Wednesday, the National Assembly approved changes to Nigeria’s Electoral Act. Here are eight things you need to know about it:
1. INSTANT TRANSMISSION OF RESULTS: The overarching objective of this new electoral act is to reduce human interference in the electoral process and minimize corruption. In this regard, the Electoral Act amendment mandates the immediate transmission of voting results from polling units to collation centers. This will help to give real-time results and updates and end election malpractice.
2. ONLINE PUBLICATION OF VOTER REGISTERS: This amendment provides a fair and more level playing ground for all contestants by mandating INEC to publish all voter registers 30 days before the election. This will end the manipulation of voter registers. In the case of missing names on the voter register, voters have 30 days to complain to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
3. FULL BIOMETRIC ACCREDITATION: The Electoral Act amendment gives INEC powers to utilize full biometric accreditation of voters with smart card readers and/or other technological devices, as INEC may introduce for elections from time to time.
4. RESTRICTS ARBITRARY QUALIFICATIONS: The Electoral Act amendment ensures that political parties can no longer impose arbitrary qualification criteria on candidates. This will encourage younger voters to contest, promote competition in the process, and make elections more free and fair.
5. CONFLICT RESOLUTION MECHANISMS: The Electoral Act amendment sets out a more rigorous process for the determination of candidates, as well as creates dispute resolution mechanisms that will allow those who are aggrieved to petition quickly.
6: MAXIMUM EXPENSES: The Electoral Act amendment sets out the maximum expenses that can be incurred by every politician who is seeking election, as well as designates the fees that aspirants will pay to political parties to purchase forms. This means that our elections will no longer be about money and politics, but about competence.
7. SUBSTITUTION, RESIGNATION AND REPLACEMENT: The Electoral Act amendment ensures that the names of candidates must be submitted not earlier than 90 days before the election, and not later than 60 days before the election. Additionally, candidates can only be substituted not later than 30 days before the election. Additionally, in the case of resignations, the person who is resigning must do so physically (in-person) — and his/her resignation letter will be transmitted to INEC.
8. DEATH: The Electoral Act amendment specifies that in the case of a death occurring before an election, such election will be suspended for 21 days and a replacement will be done within 14 days — the remaining the seven days will be used for campaigning.
-
Ekweremadu meets UK Envoy, says Electoral Act, Constitution Amendments ready in matter of weeks
The Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has assured that legislative work on the Electoral Act and the Constitution amendment would be concluded in a matter of weeks.
He spoke on Monday when he received a delegation of the British High Commission in Nigeria led by the High Commissioner, Mr. Paul Arkwright.
Ekweremadu, who expressed gratitude to the British government for always showing interest in state of the Nigerian union and her democracy, said that concluding the amendments to the Electoral Act and Constitution amendment was top on the priority list of the 8th National Assembly to ensure better governance and smooth elections in 2019.
He said: “The 2019 election is very important to Nigeria. The amendments to the Electoral Act and the Constitution all form part of the ongoing electoral reform to continue to improve on the quality of our elections.
“In the previous amendment, a timeframe was set for the determination of election petitions. Now we are working on setting a timeframe for pre-election matters. In the previous amendments, we also created a window for direct and indirect primary by political parties. In the current amendment, we want to make more elaborate provisions regarding direct party primaries for political parties that may wish to adopt it to ensure greater fairness, transparency, and internal democracy in choosing their flag bearers.
“We are also working to lift the restrictions on the use of electronic voting by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. That way, it will be up to the election management body to determine if it is sufficiently prepared to deploy electronic voting or when to adopt electronic voting”.
Ekweremadu was also of the view that the rearrangement of the order of election as passed by the House of Representatives if adopted by the Conference Committee of both Houses, would help the electorate to judge each candidate on his or her own merit at each level of election.
“The bottom line is that the Conference Committees on both the Electoral Act and Constitution Amendment are meeting separately this week to conclude work on the entire amendments to ensure a smoother and more credible electoral process as well as promote good governance of the country”, he added.
Earlier, the British High Commissioner, Mr. Arkwright, said they had come to see the Deputy President of the Senate on political developments, especially as it concerned the prospects for the Peoples Democratic Party and legislative activities of the National Assembly.
“The legislative programme, which you have in the Senate and the National Assembly, the changes to the electoral laws are also important to us”, Arkwright concluded.
-
2019: Details of new Electoral Act emerge as Reps change order of elections
The House of Representatives on Tuesday amended the Electoral Act to change the order of 2019 general elections’ time table.
This came barely a month after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the time-table for the general elections.
With the amendment, the National Assembly election is to hold first, followed by gubernatorial and state assembly polls and presidential election to be conducted last.
The amendment was made at the Committee of the whole House, presided by the Deputy Speaker, Mr Yussuff Lasun.
The lawmakers amended the Act while considering the report of the House Committee on Electoral Matters which proposed amendment of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
In the time-table released by INEC, Presidential and National Assembly elections were to hold first, while governorship and state assembly would follow.
The House amended section 25 of the Principal Act and substituted it with a new section 25 (1).
According to the section, the elections shall be held in the following order: (a) National Assembly election (b) State Houses of Assembly and Governorship elections (c) Presidential election.
Similarly, section 87 was amended by adding a new section 87 (11) with a marginal note “time for primaries of political parties”.
“The primaries of political parties shall follow the following sequence (i) State House of Assembly (ii) National Assembly (iii) Governorship, and (iv), President.
“The dates for the above stated primaries shall not be held earlier than 120 days and not later than 90 days before the date of elections to the offices.”
The House also amended section 36 to allow running mate of candidate that dies before the conclusion of elections inherit his votes and continue with the process.
Section 35 which states that if before an election a candidate dies, he will be replaced by the next contestant with the highest vote was also amended.
The amendment indicated that if a nominated candidate died in the election process, the next person from the same political party with the second highest votes in the primary election should replace the deceased.
It stated that the name of the new person should be submitted to INEC, which should accept such replacement as if the deceased was alive.
The House also made an increment in the limitation of election expenses to be incurred by candidates for presidential candidates from N1 billion to N5 billion.
It raised the governorship bill from N200 million to N1 billion, while Senatorial and Representatives candidates’ expenses are not to exceed N100 million and N70 million, respectively.
For State Assembly and local government chairmanship elections, candidates’ expenses had been raised from N10 million to N30 million while councillorship candidates ceiling was raised from N1 million to N5 million.
Similarly, individual contribution had been jerked up from N1 million to N10 million.
-
[See details] Senate passes Electoral act No. 6 bill into law
The Senate has passed the Electoral Act No. 6 (2010 Amendment) Bill 2017 into law and below are the details of the bill;
1. There shall now be full biometric accreditation of voters with Smart Card Readers and/or other technological devices, as INEC may introduce for elections from time to time.
2. Presiding Officers must now instantly transmit accreditation data and results from Polling Units to various collation centers. Presiding officer who contravene this shall be imprisoned for at least 5 years (no option of fine).
3. All Presiding Officer must now first record accreditation data and polling results on INEC’s prescribed forms before transmitting them. The data/result recorded must be the same with what they transmitted.
4. INEC now has unfettered powers to conduct elections by electronic voting.
5. Besides manual registers, INEC is now mandated to keep Electronic registers of voters.
6. INEC is now mandated to publish voters’ registers on its official website(s) for public scrutiny at least 30 days before a general election and any INEC staff who is responsible for this but fails to act as prescribed shall be liable on conviction to 6 months’ imprisonment.
7. INEC is now mandated to keep a National Electronic Register of Election Results as a distinct database or repository of polling unit by polling unit results for all elections conducted by INEC.
8. Collation of election result is now mainly electronic, as transmitted unit results will help to determine final results on real time basis.
9. INEC is now mandated to record details of electoral materials – quantities, serial numbers used to conduct elections (for proper tracking).
10. A political party whose candidate dies after commencement of an election and before the declaration of the result of that election now has a 14-day window to conduct a fresh primary in order for INEC to conduct a fresh election within 21 days of the death of the party’s candidate;
11. Political parties’ Polling Agents are now entitled to inspect originals of electoral materials before commencement of election and any Presiding Officer who violates this provision of the law shall be imprisoned for at least1 year.
12. No political party can impose qualification/disqualification criteria, measures or conditions on any Nigerian for the purpose of nomination for elective offices, except as provided in the 1999 Constitution.
13. The election of a winner of an election can no longer be challenged on grounds of qualification, if the he (winner) satisfied the applicable requirements of sections 65, 106,
131 or 177 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and he is not, as may be applicable, in breach of sections 66, 107, 137 or 182 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. [For example, a person’s election cannot be challenged on the ground that he did not pay tax, as this is not a qualifying condition under the Constitution.]14. All members of political parties are now eligible to determine the ad-hoc delegates to elect candidates of parties in indirect primaries. The capacity of party executives to unduly influence or rig party primaries has been reasonably curtailed, if not totally removed.
15. Parties can no longer impose arbitrary nomination fees on political aspirants. The Bill passed prescribes limits for each elective office as follows:
(a) One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N150,000) for a Ward Councillorship aspirant in the FCT;
(b) Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N250,000) for an Area Council Chairmanship aspirant in the FCT;
(c) Five Hundred Thousand Naira (N500,000) for a House of Assembly aspirant;
(d) One Million Naira (N1,000,000) for a House of Representatives aspirant;
(e) Two Million Naira (N2,000,000) for a Senatorial aspirant;
(f) Five Million naira (N5,000,000) for a Governorship aspirant; and
(g) Ten Million Naira (N10,000,000) for a Presidential aspirant.
16. Relying on the powers of the National Assembly in Paragraph 11 of Part II (Concurrent Legislative List) of the Second Schedule (Legislative Powers) to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Senate also passed measures reforming procedures regulating Local Government Elections. State Independent Electoral Commissions can no longer conduct elections that do not meet minimum standards of credibility.
17. Any INEC official who disobeys a tribunal order for inspection of electoral materials shall be imprisoned for 2 years!
-
INEC to decide on political associations seeking registration Wednesday
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it would on Wednesday disclose its decision on political associations seeking to be registered as political parties.
Chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen at ongoing workshop to review INEC’s Communication Policy, on Monday in Abuja.
Yakubu said the decision would be made public after the commission meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) scheduled for Wednesday in Kaduna.
“Let me assure Nigerians that under the Electoral Act, the commission is required to register new political parties and the guidelines are very clear for registration.
“As at last week we received 95 applications for registration as new political parties.
“At the end of this workshop there is going to be a retreat on Wednesday to review the ongoing voter registration, followed by a meeting of the commission here in Kaduna.
“There will be a statement on parties after the meeting of the commission,” Yakubu said.
He added that the commission would on Wednesday also give an update on the ongoing nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), after the commission’s meeting with the field officers to review the exercise
“We will do a mid-quarter review after six weeks and the mid-quarter review will come up here in Kaduna and we will issue our statement here after.”
Yakubu also disclosed that the commission would extend the CVR in Anambra to ward levels ahead of the state governorship election.
He added that people who registered in the state before the first quarter 2017 would obtain their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) before the state governorship election.
“We will soon announce the date for the commencement of the exercise.
“So those who have registered under the current CVR and those who will register when we devolve to ward level will all have their PVCs ahead of the election.
“For those who have registered and are going to vote in Anambra, I want to assure them that they will have their cards. It is for those who have done it in the first quarter of this year.”
On the pending senatorial district election in Anambra, the chairman said that specific date was yet to be fixed for the election as the case was still in court.
“You know the matter is before the Court of Appeal.
“A date was fixed, May 30, but at the court, one of the parties prayed for adjournment to June 12 or June 13.”