 President Mohammad Buhari rejects electoral act amendments bill says imposing direct primaries will cause trouble in political parties and the court nullifies undue vast candidacy in our number of elections Orders the ABC to refund drug moguls 22.5 million Naira This is cross-politics. I am Mary Anna Fox President Mohammad Buhari has declined ascent to the 2021 electoral act amendment bill stating that signing into law would cause trouble among the political parties in the country The president also refused to ascent to it against a backdrop that the parties have their various constitutions that indicate that primaries should be conducted either directly or indirectly and until such provisions are amended asking parties to do so through direct means would mean forcing the parties to conduct primaries through direct means which according to the president amount to abuse of the constitution of the party The president had asked the lawmakers to look at the direct primaries by a political parties clause walk on it and return the document for ascent Well joining us to discuss this is Honourable Rima Shawulu He's a member of the House of Representatives and of course we have James Ibo He's a legal practitioner. Thank you very much gentlemen for joining us Thank you I'm going to start with you Mr Rima. It's interesting because every single person all eyes were on Mr President as at the weekend hoping to hear if the president was going to append his signature or not and conversations that were coming from different you know potters were that or the president was standing in the way of the democratic process some people even said they were hoping that the National Assembly would override Mr President but here we are the president has returned this document back to the National Assembly for the House of Representatives what's the next step Well the House the leadership that is the presiding officer of the House I said the matter will be discussed when the House resumes early next year so for now it simply means that nothing can happen during this holiday everybody is quiet everybody will wait until the House resumes however I do know that the Senate had a robust debate today and decided that it will resume tomorrow to continue and maybe end the debate so one or two things will may happen the first one is that the House will be under pressure if the Senate tomorrow decides to override the veto of the president you know Nigeria is a by-camera institution, legislature is by-camera both chambers have to agree before anything happens so if the House, if the Senate decides to go ahead with overriding the presidential veto then the House will have to sit down to consider it along that way if on the other hand the Senate decides not to override the veto it will simply mean that the matter is that that the president has had his way which people have been suspecting he will because as we have read from several commentaries people have commented Nigeria's believe that the Ninth Assembly does not have the capacity and it's not willing to do anything other than what the president says the National Assembly should do it's very difficult to hear you so I'm going to try again to see if you can speak up because we can't really hear you I was saying that as it is now not much can be done again because the House has decided to go on recess until the 18th of January the Senate had a robust debate today and will continue the debate tomorrow if the Senate decides tomorrow to go ahead with the overriding the process of taking a vote to override the president then there will be pressure on the House to do the same but if the Senate does not do that the pressure from Nigerians will be upon the whole National Assembly the fact of the matter is that even though Nigerians do expect that the National Assembly will take some actions not many people believe that the Ninth Assembly has the capacity or the way to take such action as to veto the as to override the veto of the president I'm curious many of your colleagues and lawmakers have gone on holiday how is it possible that there will be a quorum if it be the case tomorrow that the Senate decides that they're going to take a different position how do you get a quorum in the House of Representatives to make sure that whatever decision you want to take is taken the House of Representatives is not going to sit again until January the Senate is going to meet and these are simply constitutional procedures the National Assembly votes to override any presidential veto by two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly so the question of quorum does not arise is not two-thirds of those who are present but two-thirds of all the members of the National Assembly in the case of Senate for instance two-thirds of the 109 members in the case of House of Representatives we are talking about 240 members decide voting to override the president's veto if 239 members vote to override the president's veto that will not stand it means that the veto has succeeded will require 240 votes and so you just need one member of the House to make up to give those that don't want 121 votes and if we get 121 votes agreeing with the president then it means that the president's veto has succeeded I want to push you Father being that you are also part of this when the National Assembly was agreeing on this issue of direct primary we know that there was a lot of back and forth as to agreement and disagreement and you are all party men you all know what the constitutions of your different parties say why did the House and the Senate unanimously or push or vote for this knowing that it might be a clog in the wills of the democratic process and lots of people have also said that we probably are not ready for it or ripe enough for it and the House even go in this route in the first place well my view about it is that I think the ruling or progressive congress is playing games on the intelligence of Nigerians the fact of the matter is that the president and the PAPC in my opinion are not interested in reforming the electoral system if they were interested in reforming the electoral system would not today be talking about amending the 2010 electoral act mind you the act that we are talking about now is the one that was drafted under the under president Goodluck Jonathan 2010 since that time up to now we are talking about how many years we are talking about nearly eight years seven years so we are because in my opinion the PAPC is not prepared for the 2023 elections and so it does not want us to have an electoral system that will clean up our elections it is interested in the old ways that we can write results from all parts of the country or the past that they think they control or the past that they think have security challenges so that they cannot say as much as I want to agree with you it is very interesting this same paper piece of document that you are referring to has the electronic transfer of results and when you say that they are not necessarily interested in cleaning up our democratic process but they are part of the people who have also signed on to this document so I am finding it difficult to believe what you are saying no no no if they have signed up to the document these issues were converged in the 8th assembly and the president several times vetoed on the basis of mere spellings of spellings in the amendment in the electoral proposed electoral act amendment the president vetoed the electoral act several times he got to a stage that he said it was too late for any amendment to the electoral act to be undertaken now if you look at what has happened now the apc control senate actually from the beginning decided that there should be no electronic transfer a transmission of election result it was a preju that was brought to bear on the system by Nigerians that made the senate to backtrack and in the house there was so much debate and work out on the basis of the fact that the apc members did not want to have anything that would automate and easing the process of election they would have preferred some even brought people from the from some agencies to come and lie on earth Nigeria did not have the capacity to conduct to transmit election election results from all parts of the country and these things were disputed and they were formed to be false so those are not actions by people who are interested in reforming the electoral system if the president and the apc were interested in reforming the electoral system the way they pushed the PRB the petroleum industry act they would have done the same to the electoral act amendment but they are not interested and the game that is going on is to make sure that by the time the president will say he has agreed with what has taken place they will say again that it is too late for him to sign the act I want to assure you that even if the two chambers of the national assembly today had agreed that they would remove the issues of the issue of direct or indirect primaries and transmit the same to the president the president will still write back to raise some issues about the the amendments in the electoral act and push it to the time that he will say no it is too late to act Mr. Shahulu I think we lost connection with you but let me come to James Ibo James as an outsider looking in the Honourable Member has made a lot of allegations against the ruling party and he has called it a game of sorts to wiggle the way out of having free for incredible elections come 2023 what is your take on that? Yes I agree in all force with Honourable Rima in fact Yalazali extensively too expose the fact that the disposition of the ninth assembly is that they are not going to pass the override the presidential veto and from what he said is in tandem with his fears were confirmed this morning by the Senate president who was defending the president and justifying the president's action it was so frustrating listening to the Senate president asking the president defending and refusing to defend the position of the ninth assembly but rather defending the reasons or justifying the reasons for the presidential veto that clearly shows that this very ninth assembly is not ready to override the presidential veto and this is the holiday period we are mobilizing with the young people of Nigeria we are mobilizing to confront our representatives in our constituencies if they are ready to run elections if they are willing to run elections in 2023 they will either override the presidential veto or just forget about their political ambition I think it has come to that point where we have to insist that the right thing be done imagine the president's letter as explained by the Senate president that it will be too expensive that it will strain security agencies it will cause insecurity how but the president has also made a point saying that this would cost some form of confusion within the political parties being that these political parties be it the APC or the PDP or the APCA have a constitution a rule book that they follow through and in those rule books especially for the PDP and the APC there are different ways to go about their primaries there's the directs, indirects and then there's a consensus candidate and so if this law has to be imposed then they have to revisit their own constitutions to amend it a case that the president is making does it not hold water yeah that defend is lame and ridiculous it is ridiculous we have the act of the National Assembly is superior to any party constitution or rules when once the National Assembly makes a law every other instrument every other association like political parties is compared to align their positions not to contradict the act of the National Assembly so let's not even talk about that whoever advised the president to use as an excuse has mislead Mr. President and if I am in the position of Mr. President I will suck whoever gave me the advice because it is shameful that Mr. President will give that excuse saying the act of the National Assembly is subject to the constitutions of political parties please we can't accept that remember we are in the 21st century we just launched 5G when we talk about direct primaries it can also be electronic the constitution the proposed deal also talk about electronic voting political parties can vote directly using electronic means of doing that which is cheaper and without any security risk provided a process the electronic platform adopted is guaranteed is reliable because remember most of these companies providing these services ensure that they are footprints it will also reduce the cost of litigation look at what has happened to Mr. President yesterday Mr. President made the judgment we are just listening to it this afternoon maybe if there was direct primaries and electronic voting that would have been avoided and imagine the cost the investment by the APC and assuming that Mr. President won the elections you can imagine the position that this would have thrown the people of Anambra stage interesting I want to quickly run something by you and ask the same question to the honourable member before I let you go INEC is insisting as at yesterday they are insisting that on this issue of the electoral act bill that they are going to in fact they are saying they must use technology for the elections I am going to tell you the case that they are making the INEC chairman said this on Tuesday during a meeting with resident electoral commissioners he said that they need to use the beavers which is very important we saw how the beavers malfunctioned a little bit in Anambra but then of course when they fixed it it was up and running and it was very fast they are saying that look technological innovation is very important for the elections they are talking about uploading these election results they are saying that it would ease their entirety and push out all of these issues that we point to ballot box snatching and of course the violence that takes place in these polling units they are insisting against what is happening on the floor of the National Assembly and of course what Mr President's letter is saying INEC still is standing its ground saying that they must use technology during the elections but looking at all of this we made as to the game that the party at the national level which is the APC is doing do you think that INEC might be able to explore this technological aspect of running our elections the beavers have been allowed into the process but of course we are still waiting for the e-transmission of results INEC will not act in isolation of course it will act in accordance with the electoral act which itself defines or determines the electoral processes from party to the actual from party primaries to the actual election so INEC insistence is neither here nor there we are looking for we want the president to sign the National Assembly at this stage now to override the presidential veto so that INEC will be able to deploy technology in our elections we saw clearly what happened in Anambra state where power now was given to the people it made no sense for anybody to go bribing political agents or INEC officials as you know it is difficult to bribe everybody and people freely rejecting monies because power has been given to the people to determine their fate that will also happen in political parties if direct primaries are allowed and these direct primaries political parties who are sincere who want to actually have democratic primaries who ensure that they use electronic means of direct primaries voting where members accredited members of a political party can even vote in the comfort of their room those votes are validated and counted and monitored by INEC it is cost effective it will reduce rank or in fact it will reduce insecurity so every field which the president has expressed is the direct opposite of what we are going to achieve it is cheaper to deploy technology in direct primaries than the delegate elections where the people in hotels pay their money and they go against the will of members of the political party because we are almost out of time let me toss back to the honourable member in closing INEC is just as I said is insisting that the introduction of technology into the voter accreditation and results management will be way better than the manual process that has been done over the years what is the people's democratic party I know that you are the minority right now but what would you do to push for this if INEC seems to be on the same page with the PDP which is very interesting it means that the people might also be open to this particular move if it be done so how does the PDP hope to push the hand both the party in leadership and of course the hand of Mr. President I don't think there is any way the president's hands can be can be moved is for him to look at his conscience look at his history look see what legacy he wants to leave behind if you look at the legacy of President Goodwill of Jonathan is part of the fact that he lost the 2015 elections he is still regarded across the country and worldwide as a credible person because he allowed the use of technology that facilitated the victory of President Muhammad Buhari if Muhammad Buhari the president will now come and use the ladder that meet him president and destroy him so be it there isn't anything that anybody can do about it but I will appeal to him and the people around him to note the fact that he has a debt with history what legacy does he want to leave behind what does he want to be remembered as somebody who brought Nigeria down the line who improved Nigeria and in spite of the fact that he lost the president the presidential election President Goodwill of Jonathan is widely accepted around the world today for the singular act of conducting an election that was regarded as credible now to answer your question directly the PDP introduced technology and the fact of the matter is that election should not be about winning it should be about the process and that is where credible the major test for a credible election I think that we have lost the connection with Honourable Rimmer but Honourable Rimmer Shawalu is a member in the House of Representatives representing Tangkong Donga federal constituency and of course James Seabourg is a legal practitioner thank you very much gentlemen for being part of the conversation alright well thank you all for staying with us coming up on plus politics the court nullifies and Ubers candidacy in our numbers election orders the APC to refund George Mogaloo's 22.5 million Naira but we'll take a short break now when we come back more on plus politics