Since the amended electoral act was signed into law in February this year by President Muhammad Buhari, there have been a lot of controversies surrounding that piece of federal legislative enactment and that controversy is majorly gloating around a clause of the act which is clause 12 of Section 84 of the act.
This section provides thus: No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate or be voted for at the convention or congress of any political party for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election.
The reason this particular subsection of the act has been gathering a lot of political dust is that it bars political appointees from voting or being voted for during party elections unless they resign their political appointments.
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While signing this bill into law, President Buhari hinted that he is uncomfortable with the provisions of this section 84(12) and asked the federal lawmakers to delete or amend the provision of this subsection.
The federal lawmakers refused to heed the presidency’s request and didn’t delete or amend this clause claiming that the president asking them to delete or amend a portion of a law that has gone through the rigorous law-making process and is being passed and presented to the president for the president’s assent is the president acting ultra vires and undermining the independence of the legislature as a separate and independent arm of the government.
As the Presidency was not able to get the federal lawmakers to delete or amend this clause the president with the Attorney General of the Federation decided to take some legal steps and sue the National Assembly. They approached the court and prayed the court to mandate the lawmakers to delete or amend this clause 84(12) and that the court should declare that this provision is inconsistent with the provision of the Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria and therefore should be declared null and void to the extent of its inconsistency.
Last Friday, the Supreme struck out this suit instituted by the Presidency with the Attorney General of the federation and the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the plaintiffs while the National Assembly was the sole defendant.
The suit was struck out by the court on the ground of jurisdiction. The apex court held that the president having participated in the law-making process by appending his signature to this enactment in question thereby signing it into law cannot turn around and come to court to declare a portion of this same act which he joined in the making process to be unconstitutional and null and void. That amounts to approbating and reprobating and no court can allow it.
The apex court held that the President lacked the constitutional or legal rights or power to request or compel the National Assembly to amend or make an Act. The President asking the legislatures to amend an already made act raises a strong question as to the independence of the legislature as a separate arm of the government.
Justice Emmanuel Agim while reading the lead judgment held that since the President aided the creation of the Act with the support of the AGF, both plaintiffs could not turn around to question its legality.
The Constitution did not provide for the involvement of the court by the President after exercising his powers under Section 58(4) of the Constitution one way or the other.
With this current judgment of the apex court, it seems that the controversies surrounding this particular subsection of this act will be finally laid to rest for good.