The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, revealed on Monday that the 2022 Electoral Act will be amended to allow statutory delegates to participate in political parties’ primaries in the upcoming 2027 general election.
This amendment, Akpabio noted, would address a significant oversight in the previous electoral law.
Akpabio made the announcement during a meeting with the national leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association in Abuja, where he also called on the NBA to take stronger action in eliminating quacks from the legal profession.
He explained that the omission of statutory delegates from the political parties’ primaries in the 2022 Electoral Act was a mistake that must be rectified before the next round of elections.
According to Akpabio, this oversight had created what he described as “super-delegates” in the 2023 elections and 2022 primaries, where important figures such as the President, Vice President, Governors, and members of Parliament were excluded as delegates.
The senate president said, “There were defects in the last Electoral Act that was amended. So, we want to cure some of the defects that we found in our electoral system. I can tell you one.
“Without any particular intention of the Parliament, in the 2023 elections and the 2022 primaries, we inadvertently, created what I may call super-delegates.”
He further explained that due to the omission, many key political figures were excluded from participating in the primaries, and only ad hoc delegates were allowed to vote.
This, he said, limited the democratic process and created imbalances in the selection of candidates for the legislative, gubernatorial, and presidential elections.
“Because all the statutory delegates, starting from the President, the Vice President, the Governors, Deputy Governors, the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker, Deputy Speaker, members of Parliament, National, Sub-National, Chairman of Councils, and all, were omitted as delegates.
“These are areas that we think we can look at to make our democracy more participatory. Because democracy is all about numbers.
“We ended up at a national level bringing out the President, we had about 2,380 because we had 3,000 people in each of the local government areas, was omitted from the amendment it meant that all others unless you contested to be an ad hoc delegate you are not welcome at the primaries to select flag bearers of the legislative houses governorship and then of course flag bearer of the presidential conventions in all the political parties across the country,” Akpabio stated.
Akpabio also expressed concerns about the role of the Independent National Electoral Commission in candidate selection, emphasizing that political parties should have the authority to choose their candidates.
He argued that parties should select candidates who align with their manifestos, possess integrity, and have a proven track record of serving the people effectively.
He said, “We shall also look at the powers that we gave to INEC because at the time it looked as if INEC was the last arbiter as to who decides who is a candidate and not the political parties, so we now have to look up to INEC to decide whether to take the name or not to take the name and I believe strongly that the political parties should have the power to select its candidates that will best serve its manifestos and has the integrity to represent its people and has a track record of performance to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people so these are areas that we are looking at in the electoral act.”
Additionally, Akpabio urged the leadership of the NBA to address the issue of quacks practicing law in Nigeria, stressing that some of these individuals were even among the senior members of the bar.
He criticised the presence of such unqualified practitioners, some of whom had not been formally called to the bar, and called for the NBA to take stronger measures to ensure the integrity of the profession.
In his address, the National President of the NBA, Afam Osigwe (SAN), urged the National Assembly to include justice sector reforms in the ongoing constitutional amendments.
Osigwe shared an example from the 1990s when he encountered a quack in the Igbosere Magistrate Court in Lagos, a person who had studied History at the University of Calabar but claimed to have read Law.
