A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has requested presidential approval concerning the bill that allows independent candidacy.
HURIWA had endorsed the bill seeking to provide for independent candidacy in presidential, governorship, National and State Assemblies, as well as local government elections.
The group made this known in a statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.
According to Onwubiko, the bill had been transmitted to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), for assent and they urged the president to speed up processes and sign the bill to law before he leaves office on May 29.
Leadership reported that the group said the bill, if it becomes a law, would be a big game-changer in Nigeria’s electoral processes as citizens would be able to vote the candidates they believe in without necessarily being constrained to belonging to one party or the other.
HURIWA also believed that the bill, if assented to, would curb the over-bloated importance given to dominant political parties like the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party as well as their alleged corrupt leaders who turn the whole thing into an enterprise, collecting hundreds of millions from candidates to pick up nomination forms.
The group stated, “This bill is all that is needed to change Nigeria’s electoral system for good and President Muhammadu Buhari will do well to give Nigerians a deserving parting gift by immediately signing it into law as it will curb electoral malfeasance of all kinds, of course championed by greedy politicians running the affairs of political parties and financially barring eligible and competent persons without millions of naira to contest for elective offices.
“It is only reasonable that the President immediately assents to the bill before he leaves on May 29, 2023. At least, Nigerians can have something positive that he contributed to the electoral system, aside the terribly flawed Electoral Act.”
In a report presented on Tuesday, during plenary, by the Deputy President of the Senate, Ovie Omo-Agege, and Chair of the Ad-Hoc Committee On Constitution Amendment, the National Assembly has resolved to send the constitution alteration bill Number 58 after the Senate approved recommendations of a report.
While presenting his report, Omo-Agege stressed that Gombe House of Assembly has approved the constitution alteration bill – making it the 24th State to approve the legislation.