President Muhammadu Buhari has signed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill into law.
The President assented to the bill on Friday at a brief ceremony held at the Council Chamber of the Aso Villa in Abuja.
Having received the bill from the National Assembly on January 31, various stakeholders including political actors and civil society groups had awaited its signing into law by the Nigerian leader.
Previous attempts to amend the nation’s electoral laws were unsuccessful during the 8th National Assembly led by former Senate President Bukola Saraki and former Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
But lawmakers in the 9th National Assembly successfully amended the act, although they also had an initial setback.
President Buhari had withheld his assent to the bill in November 2021, citing the cost of conducting direct primary elections, security challenges, and possible manipulation of electoral processes by political players as part of the reasons for his decision.
He later gave some conditions to give his assent – an action that prompted the lawmakers to re-work the bill, leading to the emergence of two versions in the Senate and House of Representatives chambers.
The House had re-amended the bill to include the direct and indirect primary options while the Senate re-adjusted it to include the direct, indirect, and consensus modes of selecting political parties’ candidates.
Both chambers later passed the harmonised version on January 25 – the final agreed version of the amendment to Clause 84 which included the direct, indirect, and consensus primary modes.