Despite the ravaging global COVID-19 pandemic, politics was at its best in 2020 across the world. For the first time in almost 30 years, a sitting United States president lost a re-election bid. The United Kingdom finally exited the European Union. Ghana re-elected its president for another term of four years. Many other countries were engaged in one political assignment or the other. Nigeria was not exempted. Two state governorship elections were held, while inter-party and intra-party palaver dominated the political space.
With 2021 just beginning, there are clear signs that more political activities and party squabbles may still take the centre stage. With 2023 general elections barely two years away, zoning by the two dominant political parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), will be addressed.
The eighth National Assembly had passed the bill and transmitted it to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.
But Buhari withheld his assent to the bill on the grounds that the proposed law would usurp the constitutional powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to decide on election matters and would create “some uncertainty about the legislation to govern the process”.
The CSOs said the ninth assembly under the leadership of Ahmad Lawan, senate president, and Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house of representatives, promised Nigerians a new electoral law by the first quarter of 2021.
“We rely on the leadership of the National Assembly to ensure that this goal is achieved. We hold the National Assembly to its commitment to release the proposed bill this first quarter of 2021,” they said.
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The joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission and Election Matters has rejected a proposal to allow married underage girls to vote during elections.
Investigation by our correspondent revealed that the proposal did not scale through when it was tabled before the Technical Committee on the Electoral Act Amendment at the end of its three-day retreat held in Abuja last week.
The technical panel consists of members of the National Assembly, Attorney-General/Minister of Justice, the INEC Chairman, notable stakeholders in election matters and heads of pro-democratic institutions
It was learnt that members of the joint panel, while reviewing the outcome of retreat, agreed with the positions canvassed by participants at the forum and dropped the proposal.