Following a backlash from lawyers and rights groups, Nigeria has scrapped a controversial bill that would have made voting mandatory.<\/p>\n
It had proposed a six-month jail term or a $63 fine for eligible voters who failed to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n
The bill sailed through its second reading in 10 days, but a government spokesperson said it decided to withdraw it following consultations with a “broad spectrum of stakeholders”.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Nigerians have been increasingly reluctant to go vote.<\/p>\n
Turnout in national elections has steadily declined, with the 2023 presidential poll recording a 27 per cent turnout, the lowest since the country\u2019s 1999 return to democratic rule.<\/p>\n
The House of Representatives speaker who co-sponsored the bill said it was introduced with the best of intentions.<\/p>\n
Abbas Tajudeen said he had hoped it would bolster civic engagement and strengthen Nigeria\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n
But some rights groups described the move as both draconian and unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
They said the moment citizens are forced to vote, the concept of “free and fair elections” collapses.<\/p>\n
Lawyers, for their part, said it would be logistically impossible to prosecute the millions of Nigerians who may decide to boycott local or national polls.<\/p>\n
Around 20 countries worldwide enforce compulsory voting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Following a backlash from lawyers and rights groups, Nigeria has scrapped a controversial bill that would have made voting mandatory. It had proposed a six-month jail term or a $63 fine for eligible voters who failed to cast their ballots. The bill sailed through its second reading in 10 days, but a government spokesperson said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9392,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,27],"tags":[4061,175],"class_list":["post-16402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-abbas-tajudeen","tag-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}