Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has accused some All Progressives Congress (APC) governors of putting pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari not to sign the Electoral Amendment Bill.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria made the accusation at TheCable Colloquium on Wednesday in Lagos.
Falana said the APC governors do not want the President to sign the bill because they will no longer have any influence on the election of party officials.
The popular lawyer added that some of the governors are worried about certain amendments in the electoral act such as direct primaries and the provision of electronic voting.
According to Falana, the APC governors are sacred of electronic voting which would make rigging of election difficult for them.
He said: “The president is reluctant to give assent to the bill because the powerful governors in his party, the ruling party, are saying it is going to be much more expensive for them to run direct primaries.
“Therefore, throw away the baby and the bathwater. But where they’re actually going is that those governors have not recovered from the shock of having the electronic vote. They know manipulation will be reduced to the minimum.
“That’s why they are asking the president to throw away that bill. They aren’t saying ‘take it back to the national assembly so that the area of direct primaries can be removed’.
“The bill can be rejected only on one ground. The 2018 bill was rejected by the president on the ground that it’s too close to the 2019 election. Now, the president may also say signing this bill now may be too close to the election and might cause confusion.”
