Benue Assembly passes electoral amendment law
…Empowers political parties’ organising secretaries
By Titus Atondu, Makurdi
Following the Executive bill seeking the amendment of the Benue State Electoral law 2012 presented to the Benue State House of Assembly, the House of Assembly on Monday passed the bill into law.
The bill which was passed after scaling through the third reading at the plenary presided over by the Honourable Speaker of the 10th Assembly Rt. Hon. Hyacinth Aondona Dajoh, explained that the Law would be cited as the Benue State Electoral (Amendment) Law No. 31 of 2024 and Shall deem to come into effect on the effective date of the principal Law.
The amendment law mandated only the Organising Secretary of Political Parties to submit names of delegates and candidates for the local government elections to the commission.
The law also revealed that the tenure of the elected leadership of the local government councils is now three years as opposed to two years.
The Benue State Electoral (Amendment) Law No. 4 of 2012 (hereinafter called the principal Law ) has been amended as follows;
“By insertion of a new section 25 (1) thus ‘(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of this law , guidelines or rules of a political party, an aspirant who complained that any of the provisions of this law and the guidelines of a political party have not been compiled within the selection or nomination of candidate of a political party for election, may apply to the Federal High Court for redress.
“ By the amendment of section 32(1) thus, (1) A political party shall by notice in writing and signed by the Organizing Secretary and addressed to the Commission, submit the list of delegates for the purpose of conducting party primaries or list of nominated candidates and two agents to attend at each polling station in the ward for which it has a candidate.
“By the deletion of the words ‘two years,’ appearing immediately after the words ‘expiration of the period of of’ in section 43(1) of the principal law and the substitution thereof the words ‘three years.’
“Nothing in this law shall empower the courts to stop the holding of party processes, primaries or Local Government Elections under this Law pending the determination of a suit,” the Speaker stated.
The law also stated that by insertion of a new section 15 (4) thus, “ (4) Notwithstanding the provision relating to time for the doing of an act under the law , the Commission shall have the powers to abridge the same.
