ABUJA — THE National Assembly has promised to produce a new electoral law in the next one year as it admitted yesterday that deficiencies in the subsisting 2002 act contributed to irregularities in the 2003 elections. Senator David Brigidi and Hamisu Shira, chairmen of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees respectively on Electoral Matters at an interactive session with a visiting team of American scholars, said that the National Assembly was determined to see that a new act was in place before the 2007 general elections.
Besides, they said that a presidential debate commission would be integrated into the reviewed electoral act to ensure that presidential candidates are subjected to the rigour of defending their manifestos before the Nigerian electorate. The American scholars who are in the country to help establish the Afro-American University in Yola, Adamawa State were led by Dr. Robert Pastor with minders from the office of the Vice-President. Also present at the session was Mr. Adebo Boudrin of the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
Receiving the scholars yesterday, Senator Brigidi said: "The two Committees have a desire to review the electoral act. We had a subsisting act which was enacted in 2002 and which was regarded as a very good law, but after having gone through the elections of 2003, it became evident that there are basic inadequacies.”
"Basically, it is not a matter of confidence but it is mandatory that these reforms are put in place within the next one year so that people will have an opportunity of seeing them, the people will have an opportunity of knowing that this is the state of the law before we go into the next election,” Senator Brigidi vowed yesterday.
Also speaking at the occasion, Alhaji Shira while noting the need to subject electoral candidates to popular scrutiny, said: "We are also working towards incorporating the presidential debate commission into the electoral act because we feel that it is important that we have something like the presidential debate commission in our country where it will be mandatory for any aspiring candidate to come before Nigerians irrespective of ethnicity, tribe or religion and stand before Nigerians and tell us what he has in stock for Nigerians.”
In his remarks, Dr. Pastor said the team which is in Nigeria to collaborate with the proposed African-American University in Yola would want to partner with Nigerian stakeholders towards ensuring the survival of democracy in the country. He confessed that no country could ever boast of a perfect electoral process as he pointed to the Florida recount episode during the United States presidential election of 2000 as a case in point.
