Following President Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to sign the 2021 Electoral Act Amendment Bill, passed by the National Assembly the Senate on Tuesday went into an emergency closed session in other to look at the reasons adduced by the President.

Buhari had told the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, that he had carefully reviewed the bill in line with current realities prevalent in the country and that under current circumstances ‘conducting of elections for the nomination of party candidates as solely via direct primaries as envisaged by the electoral act amendment bill 2021 has serious adverse, legal, financial and economic and security consequences, which can not be accommodated at the moment considering our nation’s peculiarity.

The President also said that “The conduct of direct primaries across the 8,809 wards across the length and breadth of the country will lead to significant strife in the course of conducting primary elections by parties and increase in the cost of monitoring such elections by INEC.”

Senator George Sekibo, during the plenary, asked the Senators to go into a closed session to discuss the issue of Buhari’s refusal to sign the 2021 Electoral Act Amendment Bill.

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This came as the House of Representatives has passed the 2022 Appropriation Bill and the 2021 Finance Bill.

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