…pegs presidential campaign spending at N5bn, governorship N1bn
The Senate yesterday approved the use of card reader for the conduct of the 2019 general elections, as it passed the Electoral Amendment bill for third reading.
The card reader would be deployed for accreditation of registered voters. The upper chamber said where the card reader malfunctioned and another one was not deployed within three hours to the end of voting, election in such unit should be cancelled and a new card reader deployed within 24 hours for a fresh election.
During the 2015 elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deployed the card reader for the polls, although there was no such provision in the Electoral Act at the time.
The current amendment followed the adoption of the report of the Committee on Electoral Matters and INEC.
After the passage, Senate President Bukola Saraki commended his colleagues for their determination to pass the amendment before elections.
Saraki also assured them that the Senate would immediately transmit the passed bill to the House of Representatives for concurrence, calling on President Muhammadu Buhari to sign it into law when it is eventually transmitted to him.
The House had commenced the consideration of its own version of the bill last week, but stepped it down due to certain issues.
The fresh amendment was as a result of objections made by President Buhari in the earlier bill transmitted to him from the National Assembly.
The president had said he declined assent to the bill due to some errors and the burden the amendment would put on the INEC and political parties should it become law.
But senators yesterday said they took care of all the concerns raised by the president in the new amendment.
The inclusion of the card reader was through an amendment to Section 49, by inserting a new subsection (2) ,which states that: “The Presiding Officer shall use a Smart Card Reader or any other similar technological device that may be prescribed by the Commission, for the purpose of accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate the particulars of the voter in the manner prescribed by the Commission.”
A new subsection (4) of provides that “where a Smart Card Reader deployed for accreditation of voter fails to function in any unit and a fresh card reader is not deployed 3 hours before the close of the election in that unit or units, then the election shall not hold but be rescheduled and conducted within 24 hours thereafter.”
However, a proviso under the same subsection says: “provided that where the total possible votes from all the affected card readers in the unit or units does not affect the overall result in the constituency or election concerned, the commission shall notwithstanding the fact that a fresh card reader is not deployed as stipulated, announce the final results and declare a winner.”
Similarly, the Senate approved N5bn as the maximum campaign fund for a presidential candidate and N1bn for governorship candidate, as against the N1 billion and N200 million that obtained at the moment.
As for senators and members of the House of Representatives, the campaign fund has been pegged at N250m and N100m respectively from the current N40m and N20m.
As for donations to candidates, an amendment provides that no individual shall donate more than N10m, and that any candidate that knowingly accepts an amount above that shall pay one percent of the amount permitted or be imprisoned for a period not exceeding 12 months.
Another major amendment is the sequence for primary elections of political parties, which says it should be in the following order: National Assembly, State Houses of Assembly, Governorship and Presidential.
The dates for the primaries shall not be earlier than 150 days and not later than 90 days before the date of elections.
The amendment states that if at the point of display or distribution of ballot papers by INEC, a candidate or his agent discovers that his name, name or logo of his political party is missing, he shall notify the commission.
INEC shall then postpone the election to rectify the omission and fix another date to conduct the election, not later than 90 days.
“Where the election is postponed due to omission of a political party’s name or logo, the commission’s officer responsible for such printing of party names or logo commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for 2 years or a fine of N2,000,000.”
Political parties react
Reacting to the passage of the Electoral Act amendment bill, the APC National Publicity Secretary, Malam Lanre Issa-Onilu, in a phone interview, said the party would welcome the amendment if it truly took cognizance of the observations raised by the president.
Issa-Onilu, however, promised that the party would speak comprehensively on the amendment after studying it.
The Mega Party of Nigeria (MPN) welcomed the amendment.
The National Chairman of the party, Hamisu Santuraki, told Daily Trust last night that the lawmakers must have taken the observations of the president into consideration before the passage of the bill.
Similarly, a former National Chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and the current National Chairman of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Yunusa Tanko, told Daily Trust that the passage of the bill would help in the area of accreditation using the card reader.
Tanko, the presidential candidate of the party, said: “It is a welcome development, but are we sure it will be used in the 2019 general elections? The timing is a big challenge.”
On his part, the presidential candidate of the United Progressives Party (UPP) in the 2015 general elections and the current National Chairman of the party, Chief Chekwas Okorie said the passage of the bill would make great impact on the nation’s electoral system.
