As the conversations surrounding the electoral reforms ahead of the 2027 general elections continue to take shape, the Senate has begun to consider amending the 2022 Electoral Act to allow statutory delegates to participate in the primary elections of political parties.

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, revealed this while meeting with the national leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), stating the omission of statutory delegates to participate in party primaries was a defect in the Electoral Act 2022 and, as a result, created super delegates in the process.

Statutory delegates are the members of the political parties who are significant in filling political offices such as the President, Vice President, members of the National Assembly, Governors and their Deputies, members of the State Houses of Assembly, Chairmen of local government councils, Councillors, and members of the Working Committee of Political Parties, amongst others.

When the Electoral Bill to law in 2022, the document mandated that “no political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate or be voted for at the Convention or Congress of any political party for the nomination of candidates for any election”, stripping political office holders, also known as statutory delegates, from voting at primaries.

Realising the implications of the decisions, the then lawmakers made a move to reverse the clause of the electoral law, but the former president, Muhammadu Buhari, refused to sign the amendment to the law, making political office holders not participate in the primaries ahead of the 2023 general elections.

According to the Senate President, the omission of political office holders, though not intended, has created some gaps in the participation of the electoral process, stating that the lawmakers are ready to correct the anomalies to address the super delegates the omission has inadvertently created.

 “There were defects in the last Electoral Act that was amended. We aim to address some of the issues identified in our electoral system. I can tell you one.

“Without any particular intention of the Parliament, in the 2023 elections and the 2022 primaries, we inadvertently created what I may call super-delegates.”

“Because all the statutory delegates, starting from the President, the Vice President, the Governors, Deputy Governors, the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, speaker, deputy speaker, members of Parliament, National, sub-national, chairman of councils, and all, were omitted as delegates.

“These are areas that we think we can look at to make our democracy more participatory. This is because democracy relies heavily on numerical data.

“We ended up at a national level bringing out the President, we had about 2,380 because we had 3,000 people in each of the local government areas. If you were omitted from the amendment, it meant that all others, unless you contested to be an ad hoc delegate, were not welcome at the primaries to select flag bearers of the legislative houses governorship and then, of course, flag bearer of the presidential conventions in all the political parties across the country,” he said.

The Senate President further disclosed that the lawmakers are also looking at reviewing the role of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the primary elections.

He stated, “We will also examine the powers granted to INEC. Previously, INEC appeared to be the final decision-maker when selecting candidates, rather than the political parties. Therefore, we now rely on INEC to make this decision. I firmly believe that political parties should have the authority to choose candidates who align with their manifestos, demonstrate integrity in representing their constituents, and demonstrate a proven track record of delivering democratic benefits to the people. These are the areas we are examining in the electoral act.”