'Sign the bill now!' Osoba takes on Buhari, defends direct primary

A former Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba yesterday noted that direct primary, as provided for in the newly Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2021, is the best means of selecting candidates seeking political offices.

Osoba, who chaired the committee that drafted the Constitution of All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013, challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the bill, noting that the president himself was a product of direct primary.

He made these remarks yesterday when 11 Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria visited him in London, where he is currently recuperating after a knee operation.

The visited came Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun and Speaker, Ogun State House of Assembly, Hon. Olakunle paid a get-well visit to the APC leader in London about three weeks ago.

The delegation comprised Solomon Adeola (APC, Lagos West), Kashim Shetima (APC, Borno Central), Isah Jubril (APC, Kogi East), Micheal Nnachi (PDP, Ebonyi South), Ayo Akinyelure (PDP, Ondo Central), Gershom Bassey (PDP, Cross River South), Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf (APC, Taraba Central), Sadiq Sulaiman Umar (APC, Kwara North), Tokunbo Abiru (APC, Lagos East) Bashiru Ajibola (APC, Osun Central) and Hassan Gusau (APC, Zamfara Central).

While expressing appreciation to the senators, Osoba he would return home on completion of his treatment, adding that he was getting better by the day.

During the visit, the APC chieftain threw his weight behind the use of direct primary as a means of selecting candidates of all political parties as contained in the Electoral Amendment Act.

He urged the president “to sign the newly passed Electoral Act, stressing that the president submitted himself to direct primary in 2019.”

He expressed confidence that the president would sign the bill, which according to him, made provision for the use of direct primary as a means of selecting candidates seeking different political offices.

He said: “I have a feeling he will sign it. The president himself is a product of direct primary. He submitted himself to direct primary in 2019 throughout the country, heaven did not fall.

“After he subjected himself to direct primary throughout Nigeria in all the wards, he also subjected himself to a National Convention to ratify his election at the primary.

“And quote me, I had cause to tell him at our National Caucus during the Edo election issue that ‘Mr. President, if you can subject yourself to direct primary and national convention, I do not see why anybody should be afraid of direct primary.

“I said this to him and we must be honest when we are talking to our leaders. That is why I believe that the president, having been a product of direct primary, will sign the law for direct primary,” he explained.
The former governor said the ninth National Assembly has done very well in supporting what they think is right for the executive and the country.

“In the case of direct primary, we are running a presidential system of government patterned after that of the United States. It is direct primary in US that we copied.
“Why are we selective? If we do not want direct primary, then let us go back to parliamentary system like India where party caucuses select candidates.

“We cannot be selective on some aspects of the presidential system that we practise while jettisoning what is its democratic content. The idea of ‘we’ governors handpicking should stop. Let the people have a say.”

Speaking during the visit, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Solomon Adeola noted that the senators were in London and decided to pay the former governor a visit.

He said: “It is gratifying to see that Osoba is fast recovering from his surgery as evidenced in his personally coming to receive them at the door from the first floor and going back up with them to the sitting room upstairs.

Also at the meeting, Senator Kashim Shetima said they went to London as Nigerians devoid of political party or regional colouration to wish him well as an elder statesman at 82.

Shettima, a former governor of Borno State, said: “As Senators of the Federal Republic, all of us are interested in the growth and progress of our nation.

“We did not come here for partisan consideration but to seek wisdom from an elder statesman that had contributed positively to the growth of the nation and still willing to do more even in advanced age.”