Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma has described the pressure mounted on President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the amended electoral bill as unnecessary.
The National Assembly had in January transmitted the reworked Electoral Bill to Buhari for assent. However, the president is yet to sign the document, forcing some civil society organisations to converge at the Unity Fountain in Abuja on Tuesday to condemn the delay. The development has also triggered debates in the political space.
But Governor Uzodimma, who briefed reporters in Owerri the state capital on Wednesday, said the 1999 constitution as amended has defined the process of signing a bill into law.
“I don’t understand the anxiety and propaganda of trying to force and blackmail the president into signing the electoral act without following the constitutional dictates by ensuring that he will study the electoral act,” Uzodimma said.
“He has the mandate of all of us, over 200 million Nigerians. He will study the act and if there are things in his opinion he considers not in the best interest of the people, he has to address it. All these social clubs and anxieties here and there is not the best thing.
“I think we should allow the president to do his job. We have seen people making utterances here and there that the president must sign. The Constitution has expressly defined the process of making laws and none of those processes has been violated.”
