File photo: Nigerian senate
Nigeria’s National Assembly has begun work on the Electoral Act
2010 Amendment Bill which President Muhammadu Buhari rejected and sent
back to the legislature over drafting issues, Punch Metro reports.
The joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on the
Electoral Act Amendment Bill announced in Abuja on Monday that the panel
was now considering the issues raised by the President for which he
withdrew assent to the legislation.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Suleiman Nazif,
who is Chairman of the joint committee, while briefing journalists
before the panel went behind closed doors to rework the bill, noted that
“this committee is in the eye of the storm” as Nigerians were expecting
so much from them.
Nazif also noted that it would be the fourth time that the
committee would be working on the bill, which had been rejected by
Buhari two times.
“I believe that what we are doing is in the best interest of Nigerians,” he said.
The President had written to President of the Senate, Bukola
Saraki; and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, to
notify the National Assembly over his decision to decline assent to the
bill.
Details later…