The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has lambasted the national assembly, saying that the current lawmakers lack the courage to veto President Muhammadu Buhari into signing the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
Wike claimed that this has been the All Progressives Congress (APC) scheme all this while to deny Nigerians free, fair and transparent elections in 2023.
Wike said that the only way for the masses not to repeat the events of 2015 and 2019 was simply vote out the APC.
The governor spoke in Etche Local Government Area on Monday while flagging-off of Chokocho-Igbodo Road.
Wike was accompanied by the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde of Oyo State.
The Governor said he had already alerted Nigerians that President Buhari would not sign the Electoral Act amendment bill into law.
“Three weeks ago I told Nigerians that there is a conspiracy not to have a free, fair, transparent election in 2023 and that conspiracy was very clear. And I told Nigerians, Mr President will not sign the Electoral Act amendment bill,” he said.
“What APC resolved in the meeting they had was that their problem is not necessarily direct primaries, but the electronic transmission of results in 2023. If they allow that, obviously APC will lose the election in 2023 and they told themselves that the only way we can survive that is to include the direct primaries in the bill so that Mr President can use that as an excuse, that he will not sign the bill.
“Unfortunately, you don’t have a National Assembly that has what it takes, that will stand for the people, that will say look we were elected by the people and we want to give the people the best. Nobody in the National Assembly, not even the leadership can have what it takes to say “Mr President, for the interest of Nigerians we are going to veto this your refusal,’” he said.
