Senate Passes Electoral Act Amendment Bill As Saraki Anticipates Buhari’s Assent

The Senate has passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.

The bill was passed on Tuesday after it was read for the third time on the floor of the Senate at the National Assembly in Abuja.

This followed the adoption of the report by the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Senator Suleiman Nazif, who is the committee chairman, presented the report to the lawmakers.

Reacting to the presentation of the report, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha from Taraba State commended the committee for doing a good job.

He explained that the lawmakers, especially those on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People Democratic Party (PDP) were interested in transparent elections being conducted in the country.

Following the passage of the bill, the Senate will forward it to President Muhammadu Buhari for the fourth time, after the President made observations and withheld his assent to it.

Senate President Bukola Saraki was, however, confident that the President would assent to the bill after amendments made by the committee.

Presiding over the plenary, he joined Senator Bwacha in commending members of the committee for their efforts so far.

Saraki said, “Let me congratulate everyone in the Committee on Electoral Matters for the hard work they put in, and we have been able to achieve this over time and after careful reviewing. I want to commend everybody’s effort in making this happen.”

“This will go on a long way in improving our electoral process and further strengthen our governance.

“And I’m sure with this, Mr President will, of course, give his assent and we can now finally have an electoral process we all will be proud of,” he added.