The proposal by the National Assembly to conduct the next presidential and governorship elections, as well as that of state and national assembly elections in November next year has not gone down well with some Nigerians, particularly the coalition powered by African Democratic Congress, ADC.
The federal lawmakers are proposing that the next general elections should be conducted six months before the end of the current administration’s tenure, instead of February or March as has been the tradition in the past.
The proposal, contained in a draft amendment to the 2022 Electoral Act, seeks to ensure that elections into the offices of President and Governors are held not later than 185 days before the expiration of the tenure of the incumbents. It is specifically proposing November 20, 2026 for the election into the offices of the President and Governors.
This development is not sitting well with some people who have argued that governance would suffer if the bill pulls through.
They are of the view that if that becomes the case, the current political leaders, that is the president and the state governors, would abandon governance and focus on their reelection, thereby denying the people the dividends of democracy and imposing more hardship on them.
It is their belief that once elections are to be conducted in November next year, all the allocations coming to the states henceforth, would be diverted towards the election instead of using them to provide infrastructure for the citizens.
Interestingly, the argument of those behind the proposal is that it will offer ample time to finish all electoral litigations before swearing in the winners.
They are of the view that a situation where somebody is sworn into an office of the president or office of the governor and he or she is using the state’s resources to pursue his or her electoral matter in the court is not a good idea.
They are uncomfortable with a situation where somebody would be removed from the office of the governor or president, sometimes two years after being sworn in, following the outcome of electoral litigation is not good for the country’s democracy. This is because, according to them, a wrong person would have presided over the affairs of millions of people and decided their fate for over two or three years, as the case may be, and that is not good for the country’s development
However, there are those who have thrown their weight behind the proposal, saying it would reduce to the barest minimal electoral malfeasance.
This, according to those on this side of the argument, is because when the elections of the president and governors are held on the same day, the practice of the president helping the governors to rig in their favour or the governors helping to rig for the president would not arise.
One of the strong proponents of the proposal is a Lagos lawyer, Kayode Akiolu, who gave an example of how the whole idea would play out if it becomes the norm.
He said: “This will actually reduce or even eliminate, to some extent, electoral fraud because while the president will be busy fighting for his survival and not remembering that any governor exists, the governors will also be busy fighting for their survival, not equally remembering that the president exists.
“For instance, if both governorship and presidential elections were held on the same day during the 2023 election, somebody like Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State would not have won the election; he would have lost to the Labour Party, LP, candidate Rhodes Vivour.
“This is simple; the LP won the presidential election fair and square in Lagos but because the then candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of the presidential election, the party had to deploy federal forces to ensure that the APC candidate, Sanwo-Olu won the election.
“If both elections were held the same day, Tinubu would not have had the time to help Sanwo-Olu in any way and the governor would have been defeated just as the president was defeated in the state. This scenario applied in some other states.”
To drive home his point, Agbaje also gave instances of some unknown persons who won both state and national assembly elections, even from unpopular political parties, because the president and national assembly elections were held on the same day just as the governorship and state assembly elections were held the same day.
“You discover that because the president was focusing on his own election, he didn’t care about any legislator’s victory just as the legislators didn’t care about the president’s victory but their own victory on election day.