The Senate, yesterday concluded debates on the second reading on another amendment on the 2010 Electoral Bill, seeking to democratise the National Executive Committees (NECs) of political parties.

This was coming as the upper chamber of the National Assembly began move to ensure that the May 29 handover date was not tinkered with as it commenced the enactment of a law aimed at making the date sacrosanct.
The amendment of the Electoral Act 2010, according to the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution, who are sponsors of the bill, is aimed at institutionalising internal democracy within the nation’s registered political parties.

Daily Sun gathered that the move, which will wrest control of the parties from state governors, has already sparked anger in the rank of the ruling PDP governors. In his lead debate, Senate Majority Leader, Teslim Folarin, said one of the highlights of the bill was the amendment to Section 87 of the Principal Act to strengthen internal democracy by ensuring that the National Executive Committee (NEC) of a political party was the highest decision making body.

Folarin said it was in that wise that the bill was seeking to include, in its membership, presiding officers of the National Assembly, chairmen and vice chairmen of standing committees in the Senate as well as chairmen and deputy chairmen of standing committees in the House of Representatives. The bill with the title, “A Bill for An Act to Amend the Electoral Act No. 64 of 2010,” Folarin further said, was to ensure robust discussion on party issues by a larger number of party members and to avoid a situation where a few party members sat to decide the faith and affairs of a political party.

The bill read in part; “No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate at the convention or congress of any political party for the purpose of nomination of candidates for any election, except such a political appointee is an elected officer of a political party and every political party in Nigeria shall establish in its constitution a National Executive Committee (NEC), which shall be the highest decision making body of a political party.”

If the bill scales through its third reading, members of NEC of political party shall include the president and vice president in addition to presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and chairmen and vice chairmen of standing committees of both chambers of the National Assembly.

In a related development, a new law seeking to regulate the handover date has been adopted by the Senate. The new law followed the report submitted to the Senate by its Committee on Establishment and Public Service in which it sought inauguration of the president and vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and their swearing-in shall be organised and conducted by the National Assembly. In the same vein, the proposed law equally seeks to ensure that the presidential inauguration shall take place in the arcade of the National Assembly.
Section 1(ii) of the Bill states; “The entire inauguration ceremony, apart from the actual administration of the oaths of office shall be conducted and officiated by members of the National Assembly.”

In the same vein, Clause 6 (1) of the bill requires all serving and former presidents, Heads of State, Heads of the Federal Government, vice presidents or their equivalent, President of the Senate and Speakers of the House of Representatives and the Chief Justices of the Federation, shall be in attendance with their spouses while the president-elect and the vice president-elect and their spouses with their immediate families, shall be the last to come in the procession for the inauguration.

The Bill further states that the inauguration shall have a 13-member Committee drawn from the legislature, executive and judiciary to be headed by a chairman, appointed from the National Assembly.
The Bill further states that the Clerk to the National Assembly shall be the head of the secretariat of the inauguration ceremony.

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