Electoral Act amendment: ‘No disagreement between Saraki, Dogara’

THERE is no disagreement between the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, over President Muhammadu Buhari’s rejection of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.

Special Advisers (Media) to the leaders of both chambers, Yusuph Olaniyonu and Turaki Hassan, made this known on Saturday, in a jointly signed statement against the backdrop of a story in a national daily that Saraki and Dogara disagreed on how the Senate and the House of Representatives would react to Buhari’s action.

“The Senate President and the Speaker, as heads of the two chambers of the National Assembly and representing the views of their colleagues, will want everybody to know that they are on the same page on what is the appropriate reaction to the President’s withholding of assent on the Electoral Amendment Bill

“There is no disagreement between the two chambers as well as their presiding officers. The leadership of the two chambers constantly hold discussions and are in agreement on what to do, how to do it, when to do it and why it must be done.

“The issue at stake is not personal. It is about deepening democracy. It is about improving our democracy and the National Assembly is on firm constitutional and legal grounds to amend the law as well as take decision in the manner they have been responding.

“We see that story and the insinuations contained in it as mere distraction and unnecessary misrepresentation aimed at the creating division in the federal legislature. The Senate President, Speaker and their colleagues urge members of the public to discountenance the report,” they said.

Meanwhile, as the election reorder carried out by the National Assembly continue to generate reactions, the chairman of the Elders Forum of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  in Ondo State,  Professor Olu Agbi, has cautioned the judiciary against being dragged into the controversial issue.

Agbi, who stated this in Akure,  the Ondo State capital, said since the National Assembly had the constitutional power to reorder the sequence of election, it was wrong for the judiciary to dabble into the issue.

Agbi said: “I am convinced that our judiciary has nothing to do with National Assembly,  if the National Assembly in its wisdom is willing to change the reorder of election it should not be made to target a specific individual.

“I think we should have a consistent policy,  when you target a law at specific individual that law will eventually fail,  so let us be consistent.

“In USA, the presidential election is on the November 3, every four years. Let us have that kind of system,  whether it’s Buhari that is in the Presidency or any other person, it does not really matter. Whether we do the Buhari election first or we do it last,  it doesn’t matter but, some people are calculating and it is this selfish calculation that is going to cause a lot of trouble

“I don’t know the power of INEC but I think INEC should be an independent body and should not be saddled with the responsibility of ordering the election’s and and I don’t know why Nigerian should bother themselves over the reordering of the election,  whether the Presidential election comes first or last.”