A member of the House of Representatives, Bayo Balogun, has revealed that plans are in motion in the green chamber to make the Court of Appeal the final arbiter on presidential and governorship election petitions in the country.
He said a bill is being advanced seeking to amend the 1999 Constitution to make this a reality.
Balogun serves as the Chairman of the House Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
He was on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.
DAILY POST reports that current law permits governorship and presidential elections disputes to escalate from the Tribunal to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
The proposed legislation was sponsored by Nnamdi Ezechi, member representing Ndokwa East/Ndokwa West/Ukwuani Constituency, and titled ‘A Bill for an Act to Alter the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 to Make the Court of Appeal the Final Appeal Court in Governorship, National and State Houses of Assembly Election.’
“What we are trying to do now is to reduce the tribunal period to 90 days and the appeal to 50 days,” the lawmaker said.
“Then we have 21 days for filing of the petition and 14 days for filing of the appeal. By the time we put all these numbers together, we are looking at 185.
“What we are putting down in the Act is that the election will not be held later than 185 days to the swearing in.
“Once we remove it from the constitution, we will now put the provisions in the Electoral Act.
“In the amendments] we’ve also made the Appeal Court the final arbiter for the governorship and the presidential litigations,” he stated.
According to the lawmaker, the law would make the INEC to hold elections earlier than February to pave the way for the conclusion of post-election litigations before the end of a governor’s tenure.
