ACN opposes indefinite tenure for Senators, Reps
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- Category: Politics
- Published on Friday, 15 October 2010 08:31
- Written by Punch
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The party, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said if the plan succeeds, Nigeria can as well say goodbye to democracy, while the legislators would have simply succeeded in subjecting the citizens to perpetual servitude.
It said, “We learnt that the federal lawmakers are planning to insert this clause in response to the Executive’s proposals on the Electoral Act‘s amendment, which includes the use of party caucus to choose candidates for the 2011 elections.
“Our reaction is that both proposals are like the devil‘s alternative. Whichever one sails through will sound the death knell of our democracy. We therefore call on Nigerians to reject both proposals, which have no precedent in any democracy in the world.”
ACN warned that if the lawmakers succeed in inserting the clause in the amended Electoral Act, it will become law and will stay that way until amended, adding, “Of course it will not be amended because it favours the same lawmakers who inserted it in the first place and who also have the power to amend it.”
The parties said even without the clause to ensure tenure in perpetuity for them, the National Assembly members have yet to impact positively on the people.
“Once they insert that clause and wriggle free of party control, they will become monsters. Only their whims and caprices will guide them in what laws to make. Of course they would have succeeded too in shutting out every other aspirant to that office. That is democracy PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) style,”ACN said.
It said the lawmakers can as well extend such to members of the State House of Assembly, governors and even the president, thus handing over the nation’s democracy to a few fat cats.
ACN said the only reason the lawmakers were emboldened to even think of inserting such a devilish clause in the 2010 Electoral Act is the docility of Nigerians, who sat by while these people allotted to themselves obscene salaries and allowances in contravention of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the Arewa Consultative Forum has urged the National Assembly to reject the amendment to the Electoral Act proposed by the Presidency seeking the inclusion of political appointees as automatic delegates to the party primaries.
ACF said that if the National Assembly acceded to the request contained in the new bill from the Presidency, it would give undue advantage to the incumbent political office holders to easily defeat the other aspirants at the party primaries.
Its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Anthony Sani, said in statement made available to newsmen in Kaduna on Thursday that the new bill was also capable of killing internal democracy within the various political parties as well as engendering a dictatorship of the party leadership.
Sani said that ACF had made submissions to the Justice Mohammed Uwais Panel and the National Assembly canvassing internal democracy in order to forestall this kind of situation.
The ACF spokesman advised the National Assembly not to yield to pressure to reverse itself on its earlier amendment of the Electoral Act which barred political appointees as automatic delegates to the party primaries.
