The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has rejected the reasons adduced by President Muhammadu Buhari for withholding assent to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill recently passed by the National Assembly.
In a letter to the National Assembly, the president had said signing the bill so close to the 2019 general election would create confusion about which law guides the forthcoming elections and disrupt the electoral process.
But the CUPP, which comprises 45 opposition political parties, rejected the president’s reasons, saying Buhari’s refusal to sign the bill showed he was willing to plunge the nation into crisis.
The spokesman of CUPP, Ikenga Ugochinyere, in a Friday statement said the president failed to take advantage of the bill to etch his name in gold in the annals of Nigerian political history.
The statement read in part, “For each of the four times the Electoral Amendment Bill was presented to him for assent, he waited until the last day of his constitutionally allowed 30 days.
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“Nigerians should also be reminded that throughout the amendment process, President Buhari never made any suggestions or proposals to the national assembly for the improvement of our electoral process but kept delaying and indulging in unnecessary hide and seek until this last minute.
“Rather, the president is willing to allow Nigeria witness her most violent elections when he had opportunity to sign the law which guarantees the freest and most credible elections in Nigeria’s history.
“The entire plan of the APC as we had revealed in earlier communications to the media is how to steal the mandate of the people to perpetuate a failed government in power.
“Nigerians have had enough of the Buhari misfortune and are resolved on consigning it to history where generations shall be taught on the kind of persons not to be elected President in any country ever again. President Buhari by all indications is willing to plunge Nigeria into electoral crisis worse than those that twice directly led to the collapse of democracy after the 1963 and 1983 general elections.
“It is unfortunate that this is just the next election after a sitting President declared that his ambition is not worth the life of any Nigerian and willingly conceded defeat even before the conclusion of counting of ballots.”
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