Thread by @ChidiOdinkalu

In signing the Electoral Bill into law earlier today, @MBuhari objected to s. 84(12) of the law & requires @nassnigeria effectively to amend the law in order to repeal rust provision. The #NationalAssembly must disregard & resist this request. Here is why (Thread)

#ElectoralAct

S. 84(12) says:

"No political appointee at any level shall be voting delegate or be voted for at the Convention or Congress of any political party for the purpose of the nomination of candidates for any election".

Now, @MBuhari claims that: The practical application of section 84(12) is to "by operation of law, subject serving political office holders to inhibitions & restrictions", disabling them from running for office or participating as party members under the constitution.

This is elevated nonsense. The words may have bn uttered by #Buhari but the thoughts are those of Abubakar Malami. To begin with, there is no #HumanRight to be a political appointee. It is a privilege at the pleasure of the appointor.

If a political appointee wishes to become a #MoverAndShaker in the party or to run for office, they have the option to do the right thing & resign 1st in order to devote all their attention to that. It also means they don't steal public money to fund their political ambition.

I wld expect a president committed to fighting corruption to understand the design of @nassnigeria in this provision & to commend it. Lots of Ministers in Buhari's cabinet who want to run for office are holding on to office, waiting to hollow out this year's budget. #ThatSucks!

Any suggestion by anyone, no matter how elevated, that s.84(12) is contrary to any constitutional provision is plainly illiterate, uninformed, self-serving or all of the above & worse. These ppl aren't content with plundering the country. They want to scorch the earth. Stop them!

S. 84(12) has & deserves its place in the amended Electoral Act. Citizens must resist #AbubakarMalami's transparent design to make nonsense of the electoral system in #Nigeria for his personal purposes. And @NGRSenate & @HouseNGR, as the @nassnigeria must do the same.

1 more thing: @MBuhari, as president, does not have a power of #LineItemVeto. He cannot #CherryPick or #PickAndChoose what parts of a law to take. The insertion by @MBuhari is actually contrary to the constitutions of the leading parties, including his own @APCNigeria

This thing shows the desperation of the ppl in power. What will now happen is that Mr. #Meffy & his @cenbank will now be deployed to pay off @nassnigeria with bags of #GhanaMustGo stuffed with goodies for the members of @nassnigeria. The forces at play here are entrenched.

Folks will know that @MBuhari has only ever b4 signed only 1 bill in public - on #NotTooYoungToRun. The orchestration of this signing in public was almost surely for the the purpose of setting up a public pronouncement to shoot down s. 84(12) for (these) narrow ends.