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President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly are at loggerheads over the reordering of elections timetable; the showdown is heating up polity and causing anxiety in the judiciary
By Olu Ojewale
The face-off between the Presidency and the National Assembly over the reordering of the 2019 general elections is gradually heating the polity. The Senate and the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Electoral Act which reordered the sequence of elections against the plan announced by INEC.
But President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to give assent to the Bill, a decision which the lawmakers said they would resist by overriding the presidential veto.
In any case, the constitution requires that for the president’s veto to be set aside, two-thirds of the members of each chamber of the NA would again pass the bill for a second time. Two-thirds of the members of the Senate is 72, while that of the house is 240.
Thus, on Monday, March 19, in a joint statement issued by Bukola Saraki, the Senate president and Yakubu Dogara, the speaker of the House of Representatives, the two leaders of the National Assembly, expressed their resolve and reasons for the Electoral Act amendment bill.
“The issue at stake is not personal. It is about deepening democracy. It is about improving our democracy and the National Assembly is on firm constitutional and legal grounds to amend the law as well as take decisions in the manner they have been responding,” they said.
The leaders therefore urged members of the public to disregard media insinuations seeking to suggest that both houses were not in agreement with their decision on the amendment.
The National Assembly has overridden the presidential veto on only two occasions; in 2000 on Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Bill and in 2007 on the Order of Precedence Bill.
But before going through the process of overriding the president, there are legal huddles that the lawmakers have to scale through. Indeed, the lawmakers’ resolved to overrule the president on the election reordering is already being challenged in the law court by the Accord Party, AP.
In a suit filed at the federal high court, Abuja, the AP is challenging the powers of the National Assembly to amend the Electoral Act in order to reorder the 2019 elections sequence as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
This prompted Justice Ahmed Mohammed on Wednesday, March 14, to order the National Assembly to stop taking any further actions on the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2018 which seeks to change the order of elections for the 2019 general elections.
Counsels representing all the parties in the case appeared before Mohammed on Tuesday, March 20, and the judge ruled that the legal fireworks would start on Monday, March 26.
He also directed parties in the suit – the National Assembly; the attorney general of the federation, AGF; and the INEC – to within 48 hours respond to the plaintiff’s address. He gave the plaintiff until Friday, March 23, to file further replies to the defendants’ submissions if need be.
In contention is the timetable rolled out on January 10, 2018, by Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC chairman, for the 2019 general elections. Based on the timetable, Yakubu said that the Presidential and National Assembly elections would be held on February 16, 2019, while the state elections, including governorship and State Assembly elections would follow two weeks later on March 2.
But the National Assembly promptly went into session and in amending the Electoral Act (Amendment Bill) stipulates that the general election should be conducted in three phases, with the National Assembly elections coming first, followed by the governorship/state legislative houses election and the presidential election coming last. It then passed the bill to President Muhammadu Buhari.
In another twist, the president refused to give assent. Communicating his decision to the National Assembly, Buhari in a letter to the legislature on Tuesday, March 13, said: “The amendment to the sequence of elections in Section 25 of the principal act, may infringe upon the constitutionally guaranteed discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to organise, undertake and supervise elections provided in Section 15(A) of the third statue to the Constitution;
“The amendment to Section 138 of the principal act to delete two crucial grounds upon which an election may be challenged by candidates, unduly limits the rights of candidates in elections to a free and fair electoral review process;
“The amendment to Section 152 Subsection 325 of the Principal Act may raise constitutional issues over the competence of the National Assembly to legislate over local government elections.”
Showing its displeasure for the president’s failure to assent to the bill, the National Assembly has thus threatened to evoke its powers under section 58(5) of the 1999 Constitution to override the president’s withholding of assent by two-third majority votes of both chambers. The legislators took their grievance a bit further when they resolved to report Justice Mohammed, who is hearing the case challenging the legality of the reordering, to Justice Walter Onnegen, chief justice of Nigeria.
Mohammed had in his ruling on Wednesday, March 14, asked the National Assembly to suspend action on its plan towards overriding the president on the bill.
Hence, apart from the business of the day in Justice Mohammed court on Tuesday, March 20, Abubakar Malami, SAN, the minister of Justice and attorney general of the federation, AGF, representing himself in the suit and Femi Falana, SAN, representing the INEC, took an exception to the alleged attempt by the Senate to undermine the judiciary following an order given by Mohammed on Wednesday, March 14, restraining the legislators from taking further action on the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2018.
The Senate had shown displeasure to Mohammed’s injunction, saying his action was an obstruction to its constitutional assignment and resolved to report him to Justice Walter Onnogen, chief justice of Nigeria, CJN, through an official correspondence.
Malami and Falana described the threat and intimidation as “sad” and urged Mohammed to ignore such threat.
Malami said it was disheartened that the Senate would try to cow the judge from carrying out his duty as a judicial officer.
“This is so, most especially, when parties have submitted to the jurisdiction of this court. We have a collective duty and responsibility in the circumstance, to support the entrenchment of the principle of separation of powers and to further say that we are in support of the Judiciary as far as this matter is concerned.
“The independence of the judiciary is constitutionally-guaranteed and we must work to see to it that that independence is sustained,” he said.
On his part, Falana said: “With respect to observations of the AGF regarding threats or comments made outside the precincts of this court, I will humbly urge your lordship to ignore such developments so as to avoid being drawn into unnecessary controversies.”
Nevertheless, the raging controversy cannot in the same manner be ignored.
In supporting the president’s action, some lawyers have advanced similar arguments to buttress their points. For instance, Itsey Sagay, SAN, a professor of Law and chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC, said that the National Assembly’s new bill to reorder the elections was at variance with the 1999 Constitution which empowers the INEC to undertake, organise and supervise elections.
Similarly, Onyekachi Ubani, national vice-president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, agreed that the National Assembly could also override the president on the matter.
Ubani said in an interview: “If they can muster two-thirds majority of each of the houses, they can override the power of the president. They can override the president’s veto because they are the representatives of the people. This is an input, a mechanism in the constitution in order to ensure the separation of powers. In a way it may be healthy but interest of the people must be taken into consideration; you must balance it; welfare of the people is very key here.
“That is why they must exercise caution not jeopardise interest of the people and heat the polity. They must not allow things to degenerate.
The human rights lawyer said he could see issues of supremacy and ego in the matter. He warned: “We are in March and the 2018 budget is not yet passed. So, the controversy over the order of election is not in the interest of the state and the people. They must work for the interest of the people who elected them into office. That is not the work they are doing.”
He said the president had given tenable reasons for not assenting to the bill and should be accepted by the legislators. Besides, he said the National Assembly should allow the court to make a decision on the matter as well.
Ubani said by amending the electoral bill the National Assembly was trying to take over the responsibility of the INEC as enshrined in the constitution. He said though the legislators had amended the constitution, it had not become operational and that they could not rely on that to take over the power of the electoral body.
In any case, Ubani appealed to the National Assembly and the Presidency to sheate their swords in the interest of the masses.
That notwithstanding, it is being speculated in the media that the Presidency fears that the fate of Buhari would be sealed by the time election into the National Assembly, state assemblies and the governorship have been concluded.
Hence, the Presidency is believed to be viewing the amendment as a “coup” against the president, and therefore, must be resisted at all cost.
However, there are schools of thoughts that believe that on the scale of logic and fairness, the reordering should be allowed and that it is good for democracy and would eliminate bandwagon effects.
Writing an article entitled ‘Badwagonism,’ Ray Ekpu, former chief executive of Newswatch Communications Limited, said he found the reordering of 2019 elections reasonable because it would come after initial hiccups and hitches that usually attend Nigerian elections. He argued: “I fail to see the logic in holding the most important election first and the less important ones last. By our experience from past elections there are always hiccups and hitches in the first set of elections, which INEC officials always manage to correct in subsequent elections. That commonsensical approach would recommend that it is better to take an uninsured risk early with the lower grade elections than with the most important election, the presidential. In the light of the possible error reduction at the presidential election level when held last, I think the National Assembly’s approved election sequence is the best option.”
He then went on to examine previous elections and the order in which they were held. He noted that in 2015, the presidential election came first under the leadership of Presidential Goodluck Jonathan, who lost election to Buhari. Hence, he said: “Those who think that putting the presidential election first would have given President Muhammadu Buhari, an incumbent, an advantage, have not proven it.” In any case, he noted that Jonathan lost based on “the issues of economy, corruption, insecurity, especially the kidnap of the Chibok girls and his tepid response to it.”
In conclusion, Ekpu said: “My view is that what will determine the outcome of next year’s elections, whether in the states or at the centre, will be largely issues, not bandwagon effect.”
On his part, Falana said for now the INEC’s power to organise and supervise elections and the power could not be undermined by an Act of Parliament as confirmed by a Supreme Court ruling.
He argued that said if the National Assembly couldn’t organise an election, then it followed that it couldn’t fix the sequence of an election.
The human rights lawyer said: “As far as the constitution is concerned, the power of INEC to organise, undertake and supervise the elections, which has been interpreted to include the power to fix the dates for the general elections or determine the sequence of the elections, has not been altered in any material.”
Oparafo Ugakwu, a businessman, said that any serious administration should not be afraid of order of election. “Nor should a supposedly independent electoral commission be this overzealous and eager to do the partisan bidding of the Presidency,” he said.
Ugakwu, therefore, appealed to both sides to allow sanity to reign in the interest of peace and harmony in the country. But whether the two sides will reach a compromise on the issue is a matter of conjecture.
– Mar. 24, 2018 @ 5:30 GMT |
Tags: Showdown over Reordering of Elections: In Whose Interest?
