•ADC coalition chieftains
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Thursday said it would mobilise Nigerians nationwide to protect the integrity of future elections, accusing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of weakening democratic credibility by signing the amended Electoral Act into law.
The opposition party made its position known in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, who questioned what the party described as the undue haste with which the president approved the bill despite widespread public objections, reports Vanguard.
“With the alarmingly speedy assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has signed the death warrant on credible elections and, by so doing, set Nigeria’s democracy back by several decades.
“In signing the bill into law, the president claimed to be consolidating the country’s democracy, but in reality, he has simply corrupted it further by introducing ambiguity and permitting excessive discretion in the collation and transmission process,” the statement added.
The party said the speed of the amendment’s passage and assent had raised questions about the government’s confidence in a transparent electoral process.
“It is quite instructive that despite claiming to control more than 30 state governments and commanding a majority in both chambers of the National Assembly, the extraordinary haste with which this amendment was passed and signed raises the unavoidable question of why a government that wrongly boasts about being so politically dominant would rush changes to the electoral framework unless it harbours deep-seated doubts about submitting itself to a truly transparent and competitive process.
“The African Democratic Congress is also deeply concerned about what this amendment portends for Nigeria’s forthcoming elections. In the absence of firm guarantees of electronic transparency, vigilant citizens may feel compelled to physically safeguard their votes to prevent discrepancies between polling units and collation centres, as has been witnessed in the past
“As a duly constituted political party in the Federal Republic of Nigeria… the ADC affirms in the strongest and clearest possible terms that we are ready, willing, and prepared to defend the sanctity of Nigeria’s democracy using every constitutional and lawful means available to us.
“We will mobilise Nigerians toward vigilance, toward lawful participation, and toward unity in defence of their constitutional rights. We stand firm in the belief that the will of the people must prevail and that no law, however hastily enacted, can extinguish the democratic aspirations of a free nation,” the ADC said.
