Nigeria’s upper legislative chamber, the Senate, Wednesday voted to amend 36 sections of the country’s 1999 Constitution, including those concerning next year’s general elections.
Key among the amendments, which were each effected with over two-thirds majority of the required votes, is the one that mandates the next election to hold not earlier than 150 days before the 29 May handover date and not later than 90 days before the handover date.
‘Elections shall be held on a date not earlier than One hundred and fifty days and not later than Ninety days before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of that office,’ the amended section states.
Others include the one that stipulated the minimum educational qualification for any election be been pegged at tertiary education certificate, instead of secondary education; the one that cleared the way for independent candidates to contest future polls and that which lifts the ban on indicted persons from contesting elections.
Also deleted from the Constitution is the provision which stated that members of the National Assembly could lose their seats if they decamped to other political parties without a division in the party on whose platform they origina lly got to the Assembly.
Another substantial aspect of the amendments had to do with financial autonomy granted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as well as the National and State Assemblies.
The Senate also amended sections 135 and 180 to ensure that the president or governors do not spend more than their four-year tenure, especially after having spent some part of the tenure before winning a re-run election.
Section 135 (c) of that document reads: ‘In the calculation of the four-year term, where a re-election has taken place and the person earlier sworn in wins the re-election, the time spent in the office before the date the election was annulled, shall be taken into account.’
The Senators rejected what is widely considered the most important amendment, which would have seen the appointment of the INEC Chairman transferred from the President to the National Judicial Council.
For the amendments to come into effect, they must also be passed by the lower House of Representatives as well as two-thirds of the 36 State Houses of Assembly.