N’Assembly, Pass these bills now!

A frontline human rights organization based in Anambra state, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety), calls on the leaderships of the two arms of Nigerian national assembly to, without further waste of time, pass pending bills before them.

A letter addressed to the leaderships of both chambers (the Senate and House of Representatives), dated May 27, 2009 and signed by Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chairman, Board of Trustees, listed the pending bills to include a bill for an Act to Amend the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a bill for an Act Cap 15 LFN 2004 and other Matters Connected Thereto; a bill for an Act to Alter the Provisions of the Constitution of Nigeria, 1999 and for other Matters Connected Thereto; to further amend the Police Act 1967 Cap P19 LFN 2004 and for other Matters Connected Thereto; to Establish the Political Parties Registration and Regulatory Commission and for other Matters Connected Thereto; to Amend (another version) the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and other Matters Connected Thereto. (Pictures. left, David Mark, President of the Senate, and Bankole, Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives)

The letter notes that the bills which President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua forwarded for consideration by the two chambers of the Assembly on April 29 this year, bothered on criminalization of electoral offences, independent candidacy, creation of electoral offences commission among other things.

‘Our fear is that if necessary steps and extreme care are not taken, other Bills with similar backgrounds may suffer the same legislative fate’, Umegbalasi wrote.

The organization highlights that its letter was prompted by recent ‘killing’ of one of the bills (PPRRC) by the senatorial arm of the National Assembly. Intersociety laments that despite the fact that the 22-member Electoral Reforms Committee, headed by the retired Honorable Justice Muhammadu Uwais, JSC, to examine the entire Nigerian electoral process, had since completed its assignment, it is yet to be signed into law.

The committee sat for 16 months, during which it received a total of 1,466 memoranda and 907 presentations from Nigerians during its sittings in six geo-political zones of the country. Thereafter, it submitted its reports to the Presidency on December 12 last year.

The organization, also, regrets that about 64 bills, made up of 33 executive bills and 31 member-bills, are lying unlegislated before the two chambers of the national assembly.

Reminding the law makers that their predecessors in the second republic passed into law the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Laws of the Nigerian Federation (formerly African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Ratification and Enforcement Act Cap 10 LFN 1990), Intersociety challenges them to give Nigeria and Nigerians a better electoral system.

The group asserts: ‘The importance of a sound electoral system, encoded in our body of laws, cannot be overemphasized. It should, also, be emphasized, Sirs, that the electoral bills lying before your distinguished authorities are not just mere executive-formulated bills, but a product of Nigerians and expert opinions from the countries of Canada, India, Mexico, South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Cameroon, France, Cote D’Ivoire and even Republic of Niger”.

The letter, further, states: ‘Nigerians woke up one morning to eulogize your distinguished national assembly when they heard that your dual legislative body had called for the original copy of the Uwais Report, ostensibly, to revisit important areas jettisoned by the Presidency. But their jubilations may be short-lived if present trends continued’.