‘Reps pushing to make A’Court final judge in guber poll disputes’

•To cut tribunal period to 90 days, appeal to 50 days
•IGP meets Yar’adua on electoral bill for police voting

A member of the House of Representatives, Bayo Balogun, on Tuesday, said the green chamber is advancing a bill seeking to amend the 1999 Constitution to make the Court of Appeal the final arbiter on governorship election petitions in Nigeria.

Balogun, Chairman of House Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), stated this on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.

“One advantage of that provision is that while the state and National Assembly are in the Tribunal, then the presidential and governorship will be at the Appeal Court. By the time they are moving from Appeal to Supreme Court, the one of the state and National Assembly will now be going to the Appeal Court. So we will now have a spread,” he stated.

“What we are trying to do now is to reduce the tribunal period to 90 days from 150 days and the appeal to 50 days,” he added.

Balogun explained that the proposal also includes transferring the power to regulate electoral timelines from the Constitution to the Electoral Act. This would be achieved by deleting subsection (2) of Sections 76, 116, 132 and 178 of the Constitution, allowing for legislative flexibility.

The amendment would promote institutional adaptability by empowering the National Assembly to adjust electoral timelines through ordinary legislation rather than constitutional amendment.

This is as the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, on Tuesday, met with Senator Abdul-Azeez Yar’adua on ongoing reforms to Nigeria’s electoral laws, with a particular focus on the proposed Electoral Reform Bill seeking to enable early voting for police officers and other security personnel deployed on election duty.

Accompanied by Samson Itodo, Director of Yiaga Africa and other stakeholders, Yar’adua presented the draft bill to the IGP for his perusal, professional input, and institutional guidance to ensure the legislation addresses the operational realities of policing elections whilst safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process.