… as Atiku urges INEC to ‘address lapses’
Main opposition Peoples Democratic Party has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to spend the remaining three years of his tenure to “restore” the credibility of elections in the country.
PDP specifically asked the President to initiate the process of returning the Electoral Act Amendment Bill to the National Assembly in the next 14 days with a strong commitment to sign it into law immediately it is passed by the legislature ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The Electoral Act Amendment Bill was passed twice by the 8th National Assembly prior to the 2019 general elections, but President Buhari declined assent.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, while addressing newsmen on the occasion of the Democracy Day celebrations, said the President should speak on the issue of amendment to the Electoral Act in his June 12 address to the nation.
According to Ologbondiyan, “Our party holds that it behoves President Buhari to initiate an electoral reform process immediately, even if that will be the only legacy that posterity will record for him in his eight years in office.
“Any failure to initiate an electoral reform will amount to a deliberate plot by the APC to kill our hard earned democracy and return our nation to a state of nature where the will of any individual, supported by bandits and vagabonds, will become the norm.”
Meanwhile, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to “address lapses” that characterised the 2015 and 2019 general elections before the 2023 general elections.
Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2019 general elections, said in a statement by his media office on the occasion of Democracy Day celebration that there was urgent need to “accelerate the needed electoral reform” ahead of 2023.