By Clifford Ndujihe & Henry Umoru

ABUJA—BUT for the contentious provisions barring ministers, commissioners and political appointees from taking part as delegates in primaries of political parties, and resigning their appointments three months before primaries, if they were contesting, the Electoral Bill would have been signed into law a long time ago, presidential sources have said.

A top official in the presidency told Vanguard: “The lawmakers want us to sign our political death warrant. How can I kill myself? I can’t kill myself. Why do they want to stop ministers, commissioners and political appointees from being delegates at our conventions? Some of us are very loyal party members and have been contributing to the party more than the legislators.”

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According to Clause 84 of the recommitted bill, “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.

One major issue in the Electoral Bill is that at the end of the day,  all political appointees in his government would no longer be eligible, either as voting delegates or aspirants during the conventions or congresses of their political parties

What this connotes is that some key ministers in Buhari’s cabinet said to be nursing presidential ambitions would be barred from seeking the nominations of their parties, just as it means  that Ministers, Commissioners and other Political appointees must resign ahead of their parties’ primaries in order to be eligible to contest in the primaries.

“Where a political party fails to comply with the provisions of this Act in the conduct of its primaries, its candidate for election shall not be included in the election for the particular position in issue.”

After heated clamour in the polity, President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to assent the bill into law today. He rejected the earlier bill last December on the grounds of provision of direct primary as the only mode for political parties to elect their candidates. The lawmakers, upon resumption from Yuletide vacation reworked the bill and made provisions for direct primary, indirect primary and consensus as the modes for election of candidates (Clause 84(2)).

In the case of consensus, they added that all aspirants must sign that they agree with the person nominated as a consensus candidate.

These are some of the contentious provisions in the new Electoral Bill.

By the new bill, every political party must submit a detailed annual statement of assets and liabilities to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC ( Clause 86). Failure to do attracts six months imprisonment or N1,000,000 fine for the offender. Political parties are to keep an account, asset book of donors; parties must not accept anonymous monetary contributions; and no individual shall donate to a candidate more than N50 million among others.

Another issue in the Bill is Clause 52 (3) which gives the INEC the discretionary powers to transmit election results electronically where possible.

Also any political party that holds or possesses any fund outside Nigeria in contravention of Section 225( 3) ( a) of the Constitution, commits an offence and shall on conviction forfeit the funds or assets purchased with such funds to INEC and in addition may be liable to a fine of at least N5 000,000.

In the Electoral Bill, no individual entity must donate to a candidate more than N50,000, 000 and a candidate who knowingly acts in contravention of the section, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of 1% of the amount permitted as the limit of campaign expenditure under the Act or Imprisonment for a term not more than 12 months or both.

It is also stipulated that any individual who knowingly acts in contravention of the sub- section is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of N500,000 or Imprisonment for a term of nine months or both.

Also in the document, election expenses incurred by a political party for the management or the conduct of an election shall be determined by the Commission in consultation with the political parties.

Clause 89( 3) reads: “Election expenses of a Political party shall be submitted to the Commission in a separate audited return within six months after the election and such return shall be signed by the political party’s auditors and countersigned by the Chairman of the party and be supported by a sworn affidavit by the signatories as to correctness of its contents.”

The Bill has pegged campaign funding to some limits as it has reviewed the amount a sponsor can donate to a party as well as what a political party can spend on a candidate’s electioneering in the Electoral Act 2010 (Amendment) Bill presently before it.

In the bill, INEC has been given the powers to set ceilings for donations and expenses by donors, sponsors, candidates and political parties for electioneering under Section 90 titled, ‘Power to Limit Contribution to a Political Party’.

The new Section 90 of the Act read, “(1) The commission shall have power to place limitations on the amount of money or other assets, which an individual can contribute to a political party or candidate, and demand such information on the amount donated and source of the funds.

“(2) Any individual, candidate or political party, who exceeds the limit placed by the commission in subsection (1), commits an offence and is liable on conviction to (a) in case of a political party, a fine not more than N10, 000,000.00 and forfeiture of the amount donated; and (b) in case of an individual, a fine of five times the amount donated in excess of the limit placed by the commission.”

The current Section 91 of the Electoral Act, 2010, titled, ‘Limitation on Election Expenses’, says that the maximum election expenses to be spent by a candidate in a presidential election shall be N1bn; governorship election, N200m; Senate and House of Representatives membership election seats is N40m and N20m, respectively; State House of Assembly membership election is N10m; chairmanship election for a local government area or area council is pegged at N10m; and councillorship election in a Local Government Area or an area Council is N1m.