 The reworked Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2022 is yet to be signed 23 days after the National Assembly transmitted the authenticated copies to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mohamed Buhari, on 31 January 2022, leading civil society organizations to declare a day of protest calling on the President to ascend to the bill. President Buhari had on December 21, 2021, via letter read during the plenary sessions at the Senate, and the House of Representatives declined his assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill, the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021. The President noted that the mandatory use of direct primaries for all political parties in the country would be too expensive to execute, adding that it would put a financial burden on Nigeria's slim resources. That was the fifth time the President declined to ascend to the Amendments to the Electoral Act in the last five years. The clause on direct primaries was edited by both Houses of the National Assembly to include direct primaries, indirect primaries, and consensus candidature for the political parties. Following the President's delay in signing the bill, there were strong indications that unless the Independent National Electoral Commission amends its regulations and guidelines for the conduct of elections in, that is the election guidelines from 2019, it might use the Electoral Act of 2010 for the conduct of the 2023 general elections, a situation many people in the civil space would not want to see. However, the President yesterday returned to Nigeria, having been away for some time in Brussels, Belgium, where he attended the 6th EU-AU summit, and according to the extent INEX regulations and guidelines for the conduct of elections, election to the office of the President and the Vice President, as well as the National Assembly, shall hold on the 3rd Saturday in February of any general election year. Should INEX take to that rule, the next Presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on Saturday, February 18, 2023. Meanwhile, section 28 sub 1 and sub 4 of the bill, waiting for the President's assent, provides, quote, the Commission shall not later than 360 days before the conduct of an election publish a notice in each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory stating the date of election, end of quote. Now, by this provision, the threshold the Commission requires to be able to use the Amenity Electrical Act in the 2023 election would have elapsed yesterday, Tuesday, February 22, 2022. Now, the question remains, will Mr. President sign the bill? And when? Well, joining us to discuss this and probably help us answer this question is Mr. Dottun Hassan, Aare Oladotun Hassan-Hesquah, he's Chairman at TOSA Bar Forum and President of the European Council worldwide. Nice to have you, Aare, what do you think about this? Will the President sign the bill? And if so, when? Let's start from there. Well, it's quite unfortunate that we are discussing the issue of electoral acts at this time of our national lives, this issue. And it's all about the ineffective democratic and I will call it democratic indiscipline, whereby we are just professing to be guide of Africa without having the manifestation of what the press is all about. Democracy is all about the government of the people, but the people and by the people. And it has its ethos, it's all centralized. The people's confess, the people are the center of democracy, not an oligarchy system, not some set of kababs, not some set of personality and institution who believes that they have to hold us to Kibula in progressing in our democratic life. This is a country that has been existing for almost 60 decades now and we cannot just get the primary center of our democracy, which is electionary from the 60s to the 70s to 80s. Even till now, our election has always been manifested and professed with irregularities. And for us to correct that, the essence of the Electoral Act 2022 is to bring about a new living, new solution and ensuring that the people and the management of election is properly managed from political party to election date, to primaries, to how the conduct of an election ought to have been forgotten as you by now. But all I can see is all about daily dialing. It's all about us trading. It has no sincerity, even from the presidency to the National Assembly. There seems to be a conspiracy to hold us to this point in time. Now, as of today, the last period for the process of an election for 2023 ought to have been battered by now. But this delay is to further shift our presidential election from the presumed date. And don't be surprised if we have to shift election in 2023 by six months or conduct an election by 2024. Anything can happen. As far as we are concerned, there's no sincerity for the fact that the ruling APC as a day are conducted on primaries in some states, even as a date of the issues date, was direct primaries. The issue of the indirect or direct primaries have been sorted by the National Assembly. That should be the discretion of the party. But the way the presidency took it all, which ought to be the only correcting section of that amendment, they further and I introduced some unnecessary sections that will further impede and create a lot of lacunas in our democratic life. And this will now further impede us into some judicial rascality, whereby elections will be obtained as of 2023 elections. And when it gets to the post-election litigations, these old elements of delays and laxity will be proved in our law court. And if care is not taken, almost all the elections that will be conducted are not. Because as a date, the required process is not met. A lot of the elections that have been conducted now, INEC is only using its discretion to conduct those elections. They have been back and forth. INEC said it has capacity to only conduct and vote in. Yet the National Assembly is agitated. We don't know who our enemies are. And that's where the completion comes in. Okay, all right, peace. So sorry about the interruption. But let's, we have a protest, a video of the protest by civil society at the Unity Fountain in Abuja. We'll just roll the clip and then we'll come back to you. What are we asking? Thank you. I want to appreciate persons with disability. All of you who managed to come in here this morning and all civil society organizations for coming here, I want to expect to say a big thank you to the security. We applied to the security. We went to the police yesterday. They want others. You can see they are maintaining law and order in this environment. We are patriotic Nigerians. We are told today you cannot march because of one day and see. Today we are not marching. We have made our views known. Another day we will also apply to you when we are marching. We will march with you side by side because we are law abiding Nigerians. We do not want distortion. We are not disobedient Nigerians. You said the labels of our hero's path should not be in vain. We are here to ensure that the labels of our hero's path will not be in vain. So Mr. President, sign the bill. All right. Those are images from Abuja there with some civil society organizations asking Mr. President to hashtag sign the bill. It's quite interesting. Mr. Ladotu Hassanam, it seems from reports and indications that the president may have an issue with the provision that says if you are an occupant of a political position or an appointed position, a appointee, you must resign your position before you contest for an election or you start campaigning if you have an interest in contesting for office. What's your take on that? If it's true, the president has an issue with that. Office, you are supposed to not be under paid employment or under any, you also have to resign your position. I think that's the principle. That should not be an issue. But the kind of democracy we run in this country is a system whereby a permanent secretary can run, a sitting-general can run from the election. Anybody who presumes power, it's up to him but we are a card because in this country, this is only country power, it's up our card. Without you stressing just being in the car house of those that are in the system or ruling the system, then be sure of winning. Even if you do not go through primaries, your name can be on the ballot and you win an election. This is the only country whereby our democratic system is so short that sometimes you don't look at it like magic as if somebody somewhere is proving some other cabra bra, that has really affected them. So the whole delay of Mr. President, even the protests that I just watched now, we are not so sure which bill we are asking Mr. President to sign. Is it the one that has been amended by the National Assembly and the broad point or is it the inclusion that Mr. President is wanting to include? So we need, where our protest needs to go now is the National Assembly because the National Assembly has an overriding power to override the asset of Mr. President. This insertion of our National Assembly is brought to question in here. It is not about Mr. President, it's about what system are we operating upon. What kind of system is our democracy relying on? We don't even have a system of woman either. We are running a federalist country. We don't have a true fiscal federalism in this country. It's all about oligarchy, power corrupt and absolutism, power corrupt, absolutely system. Everything is about totalitarian conduct. The Mr. President wants to have his way, whose pledge that the National Assembly are just laying dead before Mr. President without making frantic position known to Mr. President? All right. Yes, kudos to the 8th National Assembly. We know a lot of things would have been done by now, but where it seems to be like we that are the citizens are the ones advocating for what ought to be the duty of the government. All right. Oladotun Hasan, the 8th Assembly, wasn't really even seen as performing optimally until the 9th Assembly showed up. However, that's not the crux of my conversation. Now, in 2019, Buharis excused us, the President, for not signing the electoral bill for 2019 was that there was no time. Now we have, I mean, three years up until today, we haven't been able, his administration, the AEPC, of course, where he is, you know, the president, the ruling party, had promised electoral reforms. Three years now, and counting, we don't have, you know, the bill. And people, civil society organization, Nigerians have to take to protest. What could be the issue? We have just seven days to go. What could be the issue this time? Some people are saying that maybe this might just be some negotiation surrounding the bill as regards the interests, because at the end of the day, it's politics that we're talking about, whose interests could be negotiated at this point in time. But we'd like to share your thoughts on that. Yeah, yeah, it's all about politics that we are seeing now. It's not even politics that they are playing. The issue I've had, I've said it earlier, this is the only party that brought electoral acts reform as part of itself, manifesto, and promises. The razor holds eye with House House acts. And dashing into our face and still blaming us that we are not well, we are too docile to even act. It shows them the lack of love for a nation. It shows the laracity of our political gladiators. The sincerity of our system. So for me, House, we want to call on President Obama to act in the interest of the nation, in the interest of our democracy, because there is no amount of lamentations or agitations without a submissive and decisive action from both hands of the National Assembly to correct this imbrogoglu and how to really get it right is all of us coming together to sit on the same page and get it right. So, Mr. President only had to give us a good omen that would be proactively meetable for this generation. So, but what do you think could be the problem now? You know, the other time, the President had made an excuse of the time. So, what is the challenge now? That means, Mr. President is too lazy, or calling too lazy to be axed in. We know how a President of Nations reacts to issues. It's your duty, for God's sake. We elected you to serve. You are not to give us an excuse for your non-service. If it is in a private company, you have to be given quarrels are better by now. But because this is a democracy, whether the National Assembly, that ought to be the check meeting institution, is more or less a rubber stamp. So, what we are demanding as a nation is that sign the electoral act that the way it's been passed by the National Assembly, leave the red to the 10th Assembly to come and correct the next president of the Nation, if there is still amendment. We are citizens who still bring forward to how we need to develop. Every democracy is not started. There is always a subject to change. Everything, I don't constant democracy in the world. There is always a room for amendments. So, we can't get it right, even with this electoral act. It won't give us the one-size-fits-all. But for us to move from one-size-fits-all state to an active stage of a democratic life, that is the essence of this amendment. Olado Tuhasan, yes, you've used Olado Tuhasan, you've used words like lazy, you've used a lot of words like quarry and sack in reaction to the president's delay. Yesterday, Femi Adatino, the media aid to the president, was quoted as saying that people like you, and maybe the civil society organizations that went to that protest, are attempting to stampede the president in deciding this bill. That he need not be stampeded in deciding this bill. It's something that he has 30 days to consider and that the president is taking the time to look at every aspect of this, to look at everything around this, to get the best legal opinion, because elections are very important in the life of the country. And if he signs it, he signs it. Whether it takes 30 days or not, he signs it. So far, it's about 23 days, seven more days to go. He will sign it. So what is it about seven days that cannot wait? And I mean, are we not overblowing this issue, or blowing out the proportion? You know, one of the worst enemy of this country are the kind of spokesman presidencies that have been getting or employing from, I think, from the inception about the presidency to the date. There's just very few number of spokesmen that think with reasoning reality. We are not stampede, Mr. President, for God's sake. It's about the duty. Mr. Prime Minister, you know, to wake up that they're not just going to be expecting the five past two or wanting to protect your job. Your job will only last by 2020, by the end of 2023. So there is a room for us as civil society to call for a system that protects the nation. We only want the nation to be protected, not anything less. So if we are demanding for a review and accent on Mr. President, it's not that it's not their protest. This government protested against the former administration of President Guloka Village, Nathank, when it comes to West South City. Nobody stampede that they have asked them that what should be there was stampede. It's democracy. In democracy, protest demands a part of the correctional value that the people hold as trust. This is one of the significance that they give people the opium of respect that they own the government. They employ the government. They give the government the legitimacy. This is what sovereignty really represents. So it's not about the law. It's not about sentiment. Let Mr. President come out of his sleeping mode and get us a democracy that is functional by signing the Amendment Act, with immediate effect. He should even prove himself as a man of integrity, man of his word. Yes, he gave us the naughty young turban. He gave us every other act. Though not all his actions are clear that our debt was a progress. But whether there is a need for him to respect that there is a national assembly, it needs to give that honor of democratic reciprocity by assenting to what has been passed to him by the national assembly. Sometimes he has no right to override the national assembly because these are people that represent the people from various constitutions. So what their opinion is on is being presented is the amalgam of over 200 million Nigerians. So he is not only refusing his personal interest yet. He should think about POM and think about the people. So for Mr. Prime Minister, we have no time to banter words with Mr. Prime Minister. He's doing his job. But he's doing it in most irresponsible manner because calling that we are we are stampeding Mr. President is more an act of that if it is a crime that democracy rightly function, you have to be summoned by the national assembly to explain. Okay, but let's also look at INEC now. Prior to this time, and that's in January, INEC has raised a consent saying that if the electoral, if you have the electoral act not being signed into law, that there's no possibility of having a timetable. And we understand that after the election that happened, the 18th of February 2023 should be another date for elections. But they're saying that there will be no timetable. What does this leave INEC? The fact that if the president, we know that we still have seven days to go, but what if the president doesn't sign the bill? What does this leave INEC? Yes, I already gave you the let nothing surprise of any consequence of the election. Election might not hold as we plan, as we project that. There are a lot of anomaly that will stay creeping and will still result more excuse and necessity. We are only afraid that if this government will not be extending its day with one year or two years, because it's possible for us not to have an electoral law, what laws are we going to be using? On the one that INEC is not having, it's timetable. And nobody is trying to show us that this is the route to go. These are symptoms of war. These are symptoms... Okay, we seem to have we have some technical glitches with the network of Aare, Olado, Tunghassen, Esquire. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Are you there? Are you there? These are symptoms that bring some nation down to you. Okay, Aare, we would like to thank you very much for your time and for your expert analysis on this subject. I would have loved to ask you some more, but time is on our side. We must not forget the Justice Mohamed Uwe's panel report. They were commissioned instead of instituted by President Yadwain in 2007. I'm sure you have some thoughts on that as well. Only God knows what is happening to that very far-reaching report by the Uwe's panel or committee. But thank you very much for your time, sir. Aare Olado Tunghassen Esquire is the chairman at Tiosa Bar Forum and President Yoruba Council of Worldwide. Thank you, sir. Well... Interesting. It's a very tense time and we'll be watching. We'll count in down seven days to go. To the 30th of March, you see the President will sign the ticket. Would you say the President's signing this route? I think he will. Because like... You think he might sign? I think he will sign. He will? I think he will sign. We'll hold you to that. I'll be surprised if he doesn't sign because he's sent it back to the National Assembly five times. No, he's refused to sign five times. And like Aare said, this is something that this administration or this government brought up and Nigeria is so happy about it. No, like you always say time is of the essence. I mean, because the timing is very important. Whether or not at the time the President would sign the bill, what time does it allow INEC to get to work and get up all of the strategy and the logistics. Let's not forget that excuses would come that all of the failures that we probably might have in 2023 elections would be because we didn't have the bill on time and so you didn't give INEC enough time to actually plan with all of the you know, inclusions that we would definitely have. But fingers across were counting down and let's see how all of this pans out. We'll step on the brakes quickly and when we return second conversation right here we look at the third force. Will there be a third force in 2023? Let's find out how that pans out for us. We'll be right back.