A bill seeking to allow political parties to nominate and replace serving members in National and State Assemblies has failed to scale second reading as it was stepped down at plenary
The Bill titled, “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Electoral Act, 2022 to allow political parties nominate and replace validly elected candidates in the event of resignation, death or vacancy of seats for serving members in National Assembly and State Assembly and for connected matters, 2023 (SB, 119),” was sponsored by Senator Karimi Sunday (APC, Kogi West) during Tuesday’s plenary.
The bill, which was introduced in the Senate on 26th October, 2023 was rejected after majority of Senators voted against it.
Karimi explained that the bill seeks to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to allow the political party that won an election nominate and replace candidates into National Assembly and State Houses of Assemblies whenever vacancy occurs due to death or resignation of the candidate during the pendency of his tenure in office.
He said the bill will primarily avoid waste of public resources on conducting a fresh election in the federal and state constituencies.
“Why are we wasting money conducting a fresh election when we can use that money for infrastructural development.”
Many senators present expressed doubts about the bill’s validity, citing reasons that it should be withdrawn as they did not also receive a copy of the lead debate’s paper.
The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, thereafter presented Karimi with the option of withdrawing the bill or amending it of which he declined both offers.
The bill was subsequently stepped down after being put to a voice vote.