Deji Elumoye in Abuja
The Senate may adopt direct method of conducting primary elections for all registered political parties in the country.
Already, the leadership of the Red Chamber has perfected moves to ensure that a bill is moved this week at plenary in this regard.
Sources told THISDAY at the weekend that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) senators are desirous of bringing to the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, the Direct Primary as an Amendment Bill to be passed by the Senate, using its numerical strength.
The same APC senators had frustrated the effort to adopt electronic transmission of elections.
President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan; Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo Agege, and other principal officers of the ruling party were said to have concluded plans to revisit a decision which had been discussed and considered, even as a Conference Committee on Electoral Act Amendments had been set up in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to harmonise positions.
The Senate and the House of Representatives had already approved the method of primary elections for the parties, even as the version passed by the Lower House is Direct Primaries while the Senate passed both Direct and Indirect Methods of conducting party primaries.
With the different positions of both Chambers, Conference Committees were set to come up with a common stand on the method to use, even as members of the Conference Committee of the House of Representatives were said to have agreed with the Senate on both Direct and Indirect method of primaries.
It was further gathered that a meeting of the Conference Committee of both chambers which were scheduled to hold Friday at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, was said to have been put on hold by the Clerk of the Committee.
The meeting was reportedly put off because the leadership of the upper chamber was said not to be too sure that the Conference Committee will give them what they want which explains why the matter against parliamentary proceedings will be brought up to use the majority position of APC to achieve this.
With this development, if it is achieved in the Senate, there will be no need for harmonisation to be carried out by the Conference Committee.
The credible source said: “How parties will conduct their primaries has been passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The House passed a version and said they want Direct Primaries, the Senate passed that one which says it wants both Direct and Indirect which has always been what was there.
“Now, a Conference Committee on Electoral Act Amendments has been set up, they were supposed to meet at Transcorp Hotel on Friday, but the Clerk wrote to inform that it has been put off, only for us to hear from the grapevine that the Senate wants to bring back that which has been passed to the floor on Tuesday so that they can use their weight as they have always done to pass only the Direct method of primaries.
“What it means is that if they bring it to the floor, it will pass and it means that if it passes through Direct, no need for harmonisation by the Committee. The Senate President and especially his deputy want to bring it to the floor because they are afraid that the Conference Committee will not be able to give them what they want and that is Direct Primaries. Even the House committee wants it to be followed by accepting the Senate Version of Direct and Indirect.
“Now the Senate President wants to impose Direct Primaries on Nigerians. The Senate had agreed on direct and indirect but the Leadership of the Senate wants to turn around by bringing up at plenary on Tuesday a decision which had been reached and a Conference Committee set up.
“Now you want to bring it back at plenary as Constitution Amendment when everything has been settled. Right now, it is a personal interest. When APC did direct primary to get President Muhammadu Buhari as the candidate, it claimed that Buhari scored 52 million votes but during the real election where both APC and non-APC voted for him, it was only 13 million votes.”
