President Muhammadu Buhari on the 25 February 2022, signed the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2022, passed by the National Assembly and forwarded for Presidential Assent, via a letter dated 31st January, 2022.
Before the 2019 general elections, to be precise 2018, President Buhari rejected the proposed amendments to the Electoral Act 2010, 4 times, citing sequence of elections and all kinds of irregularities as justification for not assenting.
In November 2021, an amended Electoral Act Bill was forwarded to the president for his assent. The President exhausted the 30 days window allowed to to give assent to the act as sited by Section 58(4) of the 1999 Constitution without signing.
President Buhari objected, given reasons of the restriction of political parties to direct primary as their mode of selecting candidates for elections. He cited insecurity, the cost of conducting direct primaries and infringement on the rights of Nigerians to participate in governance, as reasons.
The National Assembly had to review the controversial Clause 84 of the Electoral Bill and replaced direct primaries, with an option of direct primaries, indirect primaries and consensus candidacy, with clear terms on what constitutes consensus and the other two selection options. The National Assembly forwarded the reviewed electoral act to the President at the end of the month of January 2022.
President Buhari eventually gave his assent to the electoral act 25 days after it was forwarded to him by the Legislative arm of government. But this was not without the outcry of civil societies and other political actors of the nation urging the President to give his approval.
There are ten key provisions of the new electoral act law as signed by the President. Below is the summary of these ten key provisions.
