The Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, has scrapped his controversial proposal to make voting compulsory in national elections following significant public pushback. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a Monday statement from his media office, Abbas conceded that while the bill aimed to “bolster civic engagement and strengthen our democracy by encouraging higher voter turnout,” the measure required broader consensus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Following extensive consultations with a broad spectrum of stakeholders, I have decided to withdraw the Bill to Amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting mandatory for all eligible Nigerians,” the Speaker stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proposed legislation, co-sponsored with Hon. Daniel Adama Ago, had drawn comparisons to systems in Australia, Belgium and Brazil where “compulsory voting has long been practised with notable success… sustaining participation rates above 90 per cent.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Abbas acknowledged the fundamental tension between democratic participation and personal freedom, noting lawmaking is ultimately about the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The withdrawal allows for “further dialogue on how best to cultivate a culture of voluntary participation that honours both our democratic ideals and the rights of our citizens,” the speaker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Speaker’s office now plans to explore positive incentives rather than legal mandates to improve Nigeria’s voter turnout, marking a significant retreat from what critics had denounced as governmental overreach into civic participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, has scrapped his controversial proposal to make voting compulsory in national elections following significant public pushback. In a Monday statement from his media office, Abbas conceded that while the bill aimed to “bolster civic engagement and strengthen our democracy by encouraging higher voter turnout,” the measure required broader consensus. “Following extensive consultations with a broad spectrum of stakeholders, I have decided to withdraw the Bill to Amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting mandatory for all eligible Nigerians,” the Speaker stated. The proposed legislation, co-sponsored with Hon. Daniel Adama Ago, had drawn comparisons to systems in Australia, Belgium and Brazil where “compulsory voting has long been practised with notable success… sustaining participation rates above 90 per cent.” However, Abbas acknowledged the fundamental tension between democratic participation and personal freedom, noting lawmaking is ultimately about the people. The withdrawal allows for “further dialogue on how best to cultivate a culture of voluntary participation that honours both our democratic ideals and the rights of our citizens,” the speaker said. The Speaker’s office now plans to explore positive incentives rather than legal mandates to improve Nigeria’s voter turnout, marking a significant retreat from what critics had denounced as governmental overreach into civic participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parliamentary-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25440,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25439\/revisions\/25440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fctnewsgazette.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}