The Northern Elders’ Forum, the Coalition of Northern Groups and the Pan Niger Delta Forum have expressed their support to the amendment of the Electoral Act to involve direct primaries and e-transmission of election results.

They urged the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Retd.), to give accent to the bill so as to set the ball rolling to have a ‘credible’ poll in 2023.

The spokesperson for the NEF, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, in an interview with our correspondent said the group backed the improvement of the electoral law because it would ‘improve the chances for the emergence of competent leadership’.

According to him, the people who are against the adoption of direct primaries into the electoral process are people who want to maintain the status quo and whose ‘interests are threatened’ by this development.

He said, “The only people who are insisting on maintaining the status quo are people who already see their own interests being threatened.”

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Supporting Baba-Ahmed’s stance, the spokesperson for the CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said the group was in support of direct primaries.

Suleiman, in an interview with our correspondent said, “Every well-meaning Nigerian would support the latest amendment to the Electoral Act especially the electronic transmission of results and the direct primaries options.”

On his part, the spokesperson for PANDEF, Ken Robinson, backed the stance of the National Assembly to include the option of direct primaries into the electoral system.

He said, “I think that some leaders of the political parties are against it because they think that it has denied them some privileges to exclusively select people.”

He urged political parties to make sure they updated their lists and do away with falsehood and duplication of names in their membership registers.