Senate rejects bill to allow parties fill vacant seats without bye-elections

The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday rejected a bill seeking to allow parties to fill vacant seats in the national or state legislative chambers without bye-elections in the case of the death or resignation of a lawmaker.

The bill, sponsored by Sunday Karimi, Senator representing Kogi west, seeks to save funds that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will spend to conduct a bye-election.

While leading the debate on the bill, Karimi said in the places where Nigeria has modelled its democracy, candidates for parliamentary seats are replaced by the parties.

The Senator said as the country’s democracy is growing, noted that there is a need to reduce the cost of governance.

“The purpose of this bill is to eliminate waste in conducting by-elections by INEC. This bill that I am proposing is what is happening in other parts of the world, like in America where we borrowed our democracy from.

“What is in place there is that when a candidate resigns or during the tenure he dies, they don’t do another election, a candidate is nominated by the party or the state congress. 

“Even in supreme court judgments here, it is said that the party owns the ticket. When we have such situations the party should replace the candidate. Our democracy is growing, we need to reduce costs,” he said.

Opposing the bill, Kawu Sumaila, Senator representing Kano South argued that it is the people who vote a candidate into office and not any political party.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio put the bill to vote whether it should be stood down or not, the “nays” were louder than the “ayes.”

LP Presidential campaign spokesperson accuses 10th NASS of being photocopy of executive

A spokesperson for the 2023 Labour Party presidential campaign council, Kenneth Okonkwo, has accused the 10th National Assembly of being a photocopy of the executive.

Arguing that there is no separation of power between the executive and the National Assembly, Okonkwo berated the current lawmakers of being deceived with positions and money.

In an interview with AIT, Okonkwo described the 10th assembly as the photocopy of the executive, stressing that they are worse than the 9th assembly.

He opined that the opposition parties were busy justling for positions in the NASS, ignoring the alleged abuse of power by the executive.

Okonkwo alleged that President Bola Tinubu’s announcement of removing the fuel subsidy on May 29, 2023, was an abuse of power, stressing that there was an existing law opposing that.

He said, “I am of the opinion that the opposition has failed and failed woefully in Nigeria. They started failing on May 29, 2023.

“A president, in his inaugural speech, committed an abuse of power and I’m talking about the removal of fuel subsidies.

“There was already a law, PIA, that says the subsidy cannot go until the end of June. It is a law. The job of the president is to execute, administer and implement the law.

“The opposition should have immediately screamed. This is not a dictatorship. You were not elected to impose your will.

“There is a law already existing. You cannot even mention it. They were busy struggling for posts in the National Assembly. And then, the same person came out and chose a leader for you.

“And none of them could scream. Today, the National Assembly is the photocopy of the executive. We used to say that Senator Lawan was a rubber stamp but now we have a photocopy.”