A coalition of 12 civil society organisations (CSOs) has identified several drafting and editorial errors in 11 sections of the 2021 Electoral Bill.
The CSOs, in a statement to Development Diaries, said that they undertook a comprehensive review of the bill to ensure that all editorial, drafting and cross-referencing gaps were addressed after President Muhammadu Buhari declined assent to it.
The CSOs said their review uncovered cross-referencing errors in five sections of the bill, grammatical errors in two sections, duplicate provisions in three sections and conflicting provisions in one section of the bill.
The statement was signed by Yiaga Africa, International Press Centre (IPC), Centre for Citizens with Disability (CCD), the Albino Foundation, CLEEN Foundation, Institute for Media and Society (IMS), Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), and Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ).
Others were Partners for Electoral Reform (PER), Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) and Nigeria Network of Non-governmental Organisations (NNNGO).
President Buhari withheld assent to the bill over concerns raised on direct primaries.
Consequently, civil society called on the National Assembly to either override the president’s decision or remove the ‘contentious clauses’ from the bill and transmit to the president for assent within 30 days.
‘The review identified drafting errors, repetition and cross-referencing gaps in 11 sections of the bill’, the statement read.
‘Cross-referencing errors were identified in five sections of the bill, grammatical errors in two sections, duplicate provisions in three sections and conflicting provisions in one section of the bill.
‘Without doubt, these errors will occasion controversies and legal complications in the implementation of the bill when enacted’.
The CSOs urged the National Assembly to address the identified errors before re-transmitting the bill to the president for assent.
Additionally, the statement encouraged CSOs, media and development partners to sustain the effort to safeguard the bill from policy capture, manipulation, and subversion of the people’s will.
Photo source: Yiaga Africa
