 Welcome back. You're still watching The Breakfast and Plus TV African. Time now to talk on election martyrs, the Electoral Act and specifically section 84, subsection 8. Now lawmakers in the upper chamber of the National Assembly have begun the process to amend the newly passed Electoral Act 2022. Now these comes as the bill for an act to amend the 2022 Electoral Act number 30, the Northern Related Martyrs 2022, was read for the second time on the floor of the Senate during Tuesday's plenary. The bill seeks to amend section 84, subsection 8 of the Electoral Act to make provision for delegates who will not be elected as ad hoc delegates to participate in the convention, congresses or meetings of political parties in the country. Earlier in his lead presentation, Deputy Senate President Senator Ovi Omar Gege who sponsored the bill outlined some of its importance even as it relates to the lawmakers. He believes section 84, subsection 8 of the Electoral Act is an error that should be corrected to allow statutory delegates to participate in major party activities, especially the primaries. We have Chief Lecturer of the Nigerian Institute of Genalism, Gideh Johnson, joining us this time around. Good morning to you, J.J., thanks for joining us on the breakfast. All right, the Senate is making us believe that section 84, subsection 8 is an error and that's why they need to amend that particular session and it's all the subsection. What are your thoughts exactly? The fundamental error is the attempt by the National Assembly to control international party arrangements, attempt for them to legislate on how parties should conduct themselves. It was an error in its entirety and that's why you're saying that they committed this previous error in the process, shooting themselves in the foot. But as we said it, when this was put in place, they can regulate the national elections but on how party conduct themselves, these are at least stated in the political parties constitution. This matters to the left of parties to decide and there are normal convention norms and practices that govern party convention globally. Once you are elected as an elected representative at the state level, at the state level you participate in the state convention, at the local government level you participate in the local government convention, at the national level you participate in the national convention but in the process of trying to manipulate and control the political process because a lot of them are in interest. For example, the senate president signifies tension to run for the president and most of them in the national assembly, they are in senate hall as a political ambition or the other so they've been overridden and implied by their ambition. So they want to control INE, supervision of election, general election and they also want to control the parties supervision of the internal primaries and in the process they shut themselves in the food because like I said it's, is it not? Yes, you do need any rocket science for you to tell you this that the standard Nuba practice in party primaries is senators elected on the platform of the party as of red members elected on the platform of the party speakers produced by the party from the bureau state as of assembly and state as of assembly members and members of the national deli if we let the presidential candidate of any party so these are standard, standard practice and for them to discover this is just one because they are having an interface that's that they have only discovered one of the four in the bill that has been passed and signed by the prime minister for them to quickly obtain a bill that the party that was signed into law in 2022 and a bill that is even before the before before a federal court in in in a Boeing state with respect to resignations or not resignations for public officials. So if you are in a hurry to pass a bill you make mistakes. If you are in a hurry to do anything you make mistakes because they are in a hurry. We had four years to plan for this and they didn't do anything on the 2022 on the 2021 they started the process to regulate the elections of 2023 which starts in 2022 it shows the kind of the motion and attention the group of people we have elected I will spend a month of money on they have devoted to managing their affairs of this of this thing if you ask me my conclusion actually amending the act is necessary it's important because that's the normal procedure but do the national assembly do national assembly ask any rule in our party conduct their affairs no in a sense without the parties there will be the national assembly because it is the parties that sponsor candidates for election for them to be elected and you can be the national assembly except you are sponsored by a political by a political party and once you win the election going to national assembly and you don't see a situation somebody that is part of the process that was directed by the process who wants to control the process that generated them so it's it's it's that's why they they they discover this fault and that's why they are running in a task and within one the they went from first reading to second reading to third reading to fourth reading to even going to pass the bill and send it to the to you send it to the to the answer rep to the their answer rep to do the answer and then you take it to the president for example uh jeannie johnson so how then do we explain the fact that at the time the senate had actually in one voice rejected you know the request of the president to amend that part of the section because if you if you look at the argument surrounding it you can't say you want to become i mean you were talking about partisan politics at a political appointee so you want to become elected you're vying for a political office at the end of the day you also want to steal you know remand a political appointee yeah i'll come to that one i agree in totality with the national assembly on the issue of not allowing the executive to pick their appointed needs to become the delegates you give too much power to the governor you give too much power don't forget first and foremost before you are elected into the national assembly you are elected as a delegate of the party you are you are not about delicate in your sense your own those are people we call the super delegates in other climate because man you've been you've been chosen at the plant barrier of your party and then you tested the waters with the people you are a popular delegate because you have been elected by the people your own delegate is super you're not a delegate appointed within your party structure so i agree with them on that i i disagree with the president trying to bring his in for example as a president at an appoint one 108 and those eight on the one economy become delegates to the in the primaries so i agree with them in totality with that disagree with the president request for them the area behind disagree with them is this area that you have to resign if you are appointed and start you have to resign to seek election in job busy i think they should extend it to themselves for example the national assembly protected itself so if you are seeking election as a member and you are not changing office you don't need to resign but if they ask for a member and you want to become a member you need to resign or you are a senate president you want to run if you require a minister to resign to seek election into another office then you ask a senate or as the as a member or as as an assembly member seeking to become a governor or seeking to become a as a member or seeking to become a senator or seeking to become president should be resigned there should be two rules you should resign if you are sticking any of this other than the office you are in you should resign all right gd johnson you know what the national assembly did they protected themselves they were insulated from that particular clause which but gd johnson were trying to understand what has actually changed i mean we're trying to understand what has really changed because with this particular section it has gone through almost second or almost third um you know amendment process we're trying to understand how come at the first instance i mean you had the senate agreeing to i mean rejecting it from the first instance when the president had made it to what change what's different now now the president's proposal was to make ministers special assistants and special advisors automatic daily bits which is what we have had since 2003 since 2001 till the electoral act of 2022 which makes the the commissioners special advisors to be part of this of the of the state congresses and at the national level ministers special advisors special assistants now those ones are appointed by the president and there is no no that limits the number that the president can appoint so the president can go to the convention with close to an ambassadors let me use an ambassadors team so imagine the president appoints all the ambassadors so let's say there are 200 countries where you have ambassadors so the president has 200 daily bits from the ambassadors you have 40 something ministers plus special advisors close to our system let me say 16 or sometimes 17 so on his own the president has 200 and 70 delegates in his control now let's add the special assistants and special advisors so you are staying in there's every likelihood for the president to his office to have appointed close to our 500 delegates taking those delegates to convention or the governors to have close to 200 delegates that's why you have to rank up us that's why the the group that has power in example it will ask him from 1999 on to this electoral on to this electoral act of 2022 what he got us the commissioners because they are non-elected delegates either by the people doing national elections or state elections or by the party during their families and during their conventions so that's what the national assembly have done and I support them in totality with that you can bring appointed aids of the governor or the president to be delegated that election that's not done all right Judith Johnson let's look at this cross really and try to get a better perspective you know of that particular it's as though this section 84 seems to be causing a whole lot of hollabaloo for not just the senator the house of assembly but generally politicians because you have just said that it is just one that they have discovered then how do we know that they may not discover more lacune in this particular scenario and then maybe you just look for every reason to just want to you know amend because I was just reading tweets by the senate president and he was trying to explain all that is happened why they had to he was saying that it is an emergency effort to ensure that nobody is denied his or her rightful opportunity as a delegate especially the statutory delegate and these are those who are elected I don't know if you were just trying to to keep up with good faith or maybe just trying to show that they know what they're doing why there are seemingly several lacune to be adjusted one they are going to be standing in the resistance because it is the party it is every party has its own internal arrangement that governs our candidate are selected but it was an open key on the part of the national assembly to legislate on our partition conduct themselves each party has his own philosophy has his own ideology as his own principle on how they should be done that's why it's called political parties they have the ideology so it's it's outside the overview of the national assembly to make rules on how for example it will govern itself there are some parties that have to be passed or how a piece will govern itself etc do not have representation in the national assembly new Nigerian people's party do not have representation social democratic party do not have representation so it is another key by the national assembly in actual sense what they need to do is to respond in totality that section not to be going to amend it is to respond it and leave and put in close there that each party will legislate on how candidate are chosen for elective offices in there you know you know the you know the crisis we have over consensus or not consensus when the president was requiring them because the president initially refused to ascend to it you'll have been at 2021 and not 2022 but the president refused to accept to it saying that the consensus clause must be added to the panelist because what APC was looking out is for them to have a consensus and that's what you will see in the nation's comment that has been sold by APC there is a letter of the drawer that is required for all our students to sign now people are making laws to do themselves that's just the problem we have now they need to respond to that section or that subsection and insert a clause to say that political parties shall make provisions and guidelines as they feed for the conduct of families within the party that should be what we are it is not a responsibility organization has to be to make laws on the party should come or conduct or conduct themselves the party themselves have their own constitution and it is just because there are no lawyers within the party because if the parties if you have the party in fact the illegal advisors of the two parties and all the political parties they are more involved all right they have they have no business called themselves the legal advisor approach the courts and challenge all right let's just get national assembly with respect to whether the national assembly has the right to legislate on our party should conduct themselves or whether it is the party whether it is a little bit let's get a legal perspective to all of this now we have a human rights lawyer joining us barista justice oh hey buu good morning to you barista oh hey buu thanks for joining us on this particular discuss yeah justice we need to understand all the legal perspective to all of this we have the chief lecture at the institute of journalism that react into this subsection eight of the section 84 of the electoral act and he feels that the national assembly has no right whatsoever to be indulgent in the internal party or politicking you know of um political parties well um you as you see that part of the right to boss barista we'll try and reconnect with you again we seem to be having a challenge uh trying to get what it is you're saying we'll try and connect to him in a second but mostly you know barista gd john oh let's say barista gd but the justice actually has put some perspective although would hear him barista gd john said he's interested in doing it until you become satisfied and okay all right on the lighter note that the justice of barista justice seems to think that these people are just doing it because they want to enjoy power in perpetuity because it actually affects other you have mentioned that but do you really agree with me i told me i told you because they are interested the the president is interested allegedly interested in becoming the government of the other state the seven presidents obtained the form to become the the presidential nomination for and include left right and center one of the senator senator of the senator cardinal central is as nominated by the governor cardinal to be successor to new york senators left right and senator interested in one office of the other and other members interested in one office for the other so what we are trying to do is to protect themselves and in the process of being self-oriented become selfish and you are blinded you are blinded to the larger picture because you will see from the now perspective what they have done in the process of trying to spot how the executive could at the state level and if you draw the the succeeded in shooting themselves in the food and that's all they quickly saw this and that this is something for them to do to do the all right quickly all right quickly did they jump in they are sorry to just bought in uh we understand we have um barista umigubak i i hope we have a better connection here so we can get all the legal perspective thank you for staying with us barista umigubak you were trying to explain all of that to us before we got disconnected yes what i'm trying to say is um unfortunately the national assembly members are just trying to come in by all means in order to continue to advance in the available parties which is not supposed to be the the business of of of the national interest at all because political parties are on their own i don't see the reason why these sessions should be imported or included into the electoral act it has supposed to have nothing to do with the electoral act entirely party politics depends on their constitution they have a constitution that governs them so bringing sustain to form part of our electoral act is a mess of our love we should be careful and guide them the way we do things because of political interest and political gain in this country and that is why we cannot get it right over here we understand was the person that that that brought that bill in the flow of of this thing so the question you should ask yourself is this why should we or members of the national assembly in the first place consider such a deal to be made part of the law that will govern the whole country it is very very wrong party affairs should be handled by the party as simple as that okay but quickly for the sake of clarity can we can you quickly tell us what that part of the section i mean we know that there's been a lot of back and forth with section 84 but exactly for the case that you have or more or more of you are gay gay putting out what exactly does this section of the constitution talks about the constitution of the electoral that they are not trying to or they have already succeeded by you know putting it or forcing it to Nigerians or political parties what is this section talking about is saying that members of the national assembly both the senators and the house of rest the president and his friends governors and their deputies house of assembly members of various states should be made statutory delegates of their parties statutory delegates i know that the decision is supposed to be a provision of political party and not an electoral act electoral act should not conduct or have anything to do with the conduct of political parties at first what the electoral act can do is only to guide for the smooth running of election so it has nothing to do with party politics so we should be very very careful and unfortunately they have succeeded because of their selfish intent and selfish ends all right just as we wrap up now but very quickly in 30 seconds so what should we be doing should Nigerians be calling for the expunging of this particular subsection right now if it is not for the fact that the political parties are also complacent themselves the i expect that political parties should go to talk to challenge that that popular amendment all right all right thank you so much because it's not supposed to be part of the electoral act for any reason understood understood uh we have been speaking with um uh gd johnson chief lecturer niger institute of journalism who joined us via zoom and of course human rights lawyer uh barista justice only able to clarify the air on this particular subsection eight of section eight of all which a lot of people believe is actually due to selfish interest but then we'll see how all of that plays out and we'll be here to give you all of the latest development thank you once again gentlemen all right we'll take a quick break all right now still talking party politics elections and all of that in a moment we'll talk about the latest twist 18 political parties asking for extension you know because of the primaries and all of that then ionic is actually saying n o in the moment stay with us