Electoral Act: Opposition protests driven by loss of privilege – APC Scribe
• You are free to bring amendment bill, Reps tell parties The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Bashiru, and Spokesman of the House of Representatives,
• You are free to bring amendment bill, Reps tell parties
The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Bashiru, and Spokesman of the House of Representatives, Akintunde Rotimi, have reacted to the rejection of the newly amended Electoral Act by the opposition parties.
While Bahiru dismissed the protest by the opposition parties as a reaction borne out of “loss of privilege” rather than genuine concern for Nigerians, Rotimi said that anyone not pleased should be free to propose an amendment to the legislation.
Speaking to journalists after a meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, on Friday, Bashiru said the opposition parties, including the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), were aggrieved because the current administration had blocked avenues through which “some people were milking Nigeria dry.”
“Why I was laughing was that they were not crying for the average Nigerian people, they were not crying for the development of our people. They were crying because of the loss of privilege, loss of opportunity to continue to plunder the resources of the Nigerian people,” Bashiru said in reaction to the opposition’s protest briefing held on Thursday.
The APC scribe argued that President Tinubu’s reforms over the past two and a half years had significantly curtailed corruption and revenue leakages.
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“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the past two and a half years, has blocked all the leakages where some people were milking Nigeria dry. The growth of our foreign reserves from about $3 billion to $49 billion did not come out of the blue; it's not magic. It's because all those cesspools of corruption have actually been blocked,” he said.
He added that those who benefited from the petroleum subsidy regime were among those resisting reforms.
“The petroleum subsidy profiteers are also part of them, and that's why they are crying. But as they are crying, Nigerian people are happy because our country is getting better economically,” Bashiru stated.
According to him, key economic indicators point to improvement, citing a reduction in food inflation from about 35 per cent to 15 per cent and a stronger performance of the national currency.
“Salutar[ily] the country is performing,” he said, insisting that the administration’s policies were yielding tangible benefits for citizens.
Bashiru also criticised opposition figures calling for the cancellation of the amended Electoral Act, describing them as lacking both electoral mandate and legislative authority.
“When a law has been made by the appropriate legislative body, then you have a bunch of people who don't even have a single elected person saying that that law should be cancelled, I think it's more of speaking out of ignorance and out of lack of patriotism to the Nigerian people,” he said.
He urged opposition parties to focus on grassroots mobilisation rather than public protests.
“They should go back to the trenches, they should go back to the Nigerian people and sell, if they have anything still remaining in terms of credibility for them, to get electoral viability,” he added.
On his meeting with the President, Bashiru said discussions centred on internal party matters, including the outcome of recently concluded ward and local government congresses and preparations for state congresses scheduled for next week.
He declared that the ruling party was “waxing stronger,” pointing to the growing number of governors aligning with the APC.
Reacting to the reported defection of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa State to the APC, Bashiru said the development was in line with President Tinubu’s vision of building a pan-Nigerian political platform.
“I think we saw it coming. The goal of our leader, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is to build a pan-Nigerian political party,” he said.
According to him, with the addition of Fintiri, only one state in the North-East geopolitical zone is not under the APC’s control.
“In Nigeria today, we have 30 governors in the APC, three in the PDP, one in Accord, one in Labour Party, and one in APGA,” Bashiru said, describing the spread as “a testimony to the political acceptability of the APC and the political sagacity of the President.”
The opposition parties had faulted aspects of the amended Electoral Act, alleging that it could undermine electoral transparency.
However, the APC maintains that the law was duly passed by the National Assembly and signed in accordance with constitutional procedures.
You are free to bring amendment bill, Reps tell opposition parties
Reacting to the call, Rotimi told The Nation that “there is nothing improper about a bloc of the opposition caucus seeking to amend the Electoral Act 2026. Legislation is not static. Even within the same Assembly, a law can be refined through a properly introduced amendment bill that follows the full legislative process.
