By Chimezie Godfrey
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Mr Femi Adesina has revealed that the electoral bill will be signed in no distant time.
Adesina gave the assurance on Wednesday in Abuja, at the 21st Century Chronicle Roundtable
with the theme,”Going for Broke: Fighting insecurity in Nigeria.”
Adesina who spoke on ”Reducing Tension As Election Year Approaches”, said that elections should not be a do or die affair.
He urged all stakeholders to play by rules, as he cautioned that it pays nobody to generate tension or create doomsday scenario in the country, adding that Nigeria is bigger than all those things.
Adesina therefore disclosed that the much touted Electoral Bill will be signed into law hours from the moment he was speaking.
He said,”I think 2023 will either be a consolidation or we will prove that we really have learnt nothing as a country.
“Elections are natural tension generators in Nigeria, it needs not be. Elections need not be tension generators. But we as a country, we the people and possibly government are the ones that generate the tension.
“Look at 2023, elections are still one clear year away, the extant electoral act stipulates that campaign should not start till 90days before elections. Now you will see people. criss-crossing the country virtually in campaign mode when the electoral time table, the electoral calendar is not out.
“It is very important that we follow the rules. When the INEC comes out with the calender and says this is when the campaign starts that is when aspirants should now start campaigning. If a clear year or two years before then they are on the process already, is not good for us.
“Already people are afraid what will happen and is generating tension . Elections apart from being something that naturally generates tension; elections will come in the life a country but after that, the country continuous, but in Nigeria the impression we give is that this country will collapse in this election.
“There is so much of doomsday prophecies before elections that we will think that it was the last election Nigeria will hold. We have had those doomsday elections for many seasons and has Nigeria disappeared, no, Nigeria is still here. So, it pays nobody to generate tension. It pays nobody to create doomsday scenario. Nigeria is greater than all those things.
“I think is very important that jumping the gun be discouraged, not only discouraged but also penalized. I hope that when INEC comes out with its calender after the electoral bill has been signed into law. It will be signed into law and it be signed.
“It will be signed, I said in a matter of hours, it will come in hours, it may be days but not in weeks, that bill will be signed law in hours.”
Other discussants at the roundtable include the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen Leo Irabor, former Director of Defence Information, Maj-Gen Chris Olukolade, Senator Kashim Shettima, and Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim of the CDD, among others.
