The Senate has passed the adjusted version of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
The final agreed version between the Senate and House of Representatives on the adjustment to Clause 84 of the bill is the harmonised version, which was passed by legislators during Tuesday’s plenary.
It includes the primary modes of nominating candidates for elections by political parties: direct, indirect, and consensus.
Both chambers have agreed to provide a clear and sufficient definition for each mode of primaries and how they will be conducted, according to Senate President Ahmad Lawan, who presided over the plenary.
He added that the two chambers had established a very precise specification of how a consensus candidate would emerge for the consensus process.
The Senate President said that “By passing the amendment to Clause 84, the mode of conducting primaries by parties to produce candidates, we have concluded on our task on the amendment to the Electoral Act No. 6 2010 Bill.”
“We recall that the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill with slight difference. What we have done is to give very clear and sufficient definition to each mode of primaries.
“The direct primaries is well defined and how it should be conducted ditto indirect primaries; and for the consensus, the two chambers have produced in this bill, very clear definition of how a consensus candidate would emerge.”
He said that they were haooy that the two chambers have been able to achieve a consensus to arrive at the updated version of the bill and that they were optimistic that President Buhari will sign it.
