The Senate has declared its intention to confront President Muhammadu Buhari if he refuses to assent to the order of election as approved in a bill sent to him for the 2019 general elections.
The position of the lawmakers was stated by their spokesman, Senator Aliyu Sani Abdullahi.
While the Independent National Electoral Commission placed the presidential election before the National Assembly elections, the Senate and the House of Representatives reversed it.
Abdullahi said: “If President Muhammadu Buhari decides to veto the Bill, we will know what to do.
“If you recall, for us in the Senate, as far back as 2016, we had already commenced action in the various amendments and as early as 2017, the Senate had already passed its own version of amendment.
“And the House of Representatives has just come out with its own version.
“Immediately they did that, the Senate President announced the conference committee to be chaired by Suleiman Nazif, who is the chairman of INEC, so that they can do the harmonisation.
“So, for us, it is already done.
“The key issues have been debated and agreed upon.
“All that is remaining is to bring the two chambers together through the conference committee, which by next week, I want to assure you, will be concluded.
“Senator Nazif has travelled out of the country.
“He called me last Thursday and we discussed and I have it on very strong authority, next week, they are surely going to meet.
“As soon as they meet, the areas of contentions are not much.
“And I believe they will work together to make sure that we have an agreeable component that Nigerian people will be happy that we are deepening the electoral process.
“And barring any last-minute issues, I do not think that should take them two weeks.
“What we did was transparent.
“INEC was part of it.
“People with interest were part of it.
“Since we are passing what is popular, the Presidency too should not take time in assenting to it.
“If the President decides to veto to bill, we will know what to do when we get to that bridge.
“For now, I do not envisage that extreme situation.
“This is democracy.
“I am hoping that we work based on consensus.
“At the end of the day, we should be able to agree.
“The interest of Nigerians is paramount and we must not take it for granted.”
