President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday said he will only sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill if the parliament would agree to make necessary adjustments to the document.
Recall that the President had late last year withheld assent over the adoption of direct primaries for political parties by the National Assembly among others.
Buhari, who appeared on television, added that any adjustment in the bill must include the addition of consensus candidates and the indirect primary system.
The President said: “Yes, I will sign the Electoral Amendment Bill. All I said (is that) there should be options. We must not insist that it has to be direct; it should be consensus and indirect.
“There should be options, you can’t dictate to people and say you are doing democracy. Give them other options so they can make a choice.
“Personally, I do not support direct primary because I want people to be given a choice. You can’t give them one option and think that you are being democratic. Let them have three options – there is the consensus.
“PDP was so overconfident that they thought they would rule Nigeria till the end of time, but the opposition (parties) came together, and we overthrew them. Not as a result of direct primary, it is as a result of opposition parties coming together and fighting the PDP.
“It is because we agreed to come together. The fact that we came together gave us the success we had, and that was the mistake they made; that is why they lost.”
