Thisday learnt at the weekend that this is part of the key changes to the electoral laws that have been agreed upon by virtually all decision makers in government, including the National Assembly and state governors.
But this will require the amendment of Section 132(2) and Section 178(2) of the 1999 Constitution as well as Section 149 of the Electoral Act 2006.
Sections 132(2) and 178(2) state that “an election to the office of President (and Governor respectively) shall be held on a date not earlier than sixty days and not later than thirty days before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of that office.”
Section 149(1) of the Electoral Act 2006 stipulates that “if the election tribunal or the court, as the case may be, determines that a candidate returned as elected was not validly elected, then if notice of appeal is given within 21 days from the date of the decision, the candidate returned as elected shall, notwithstanding the contrary decision of the election tribunal or the court, remain in office pending the determination of the appeal.”
This means that the presidential, National Assembly, state houses of assembly and gubernatorial polls in all states -- with the exception of Anambra, Edo, Ekiti, Ondo, Cross River, Bayelsa, Adamawa, Kogi, Kebbi and Sokoto whose elections were upturned by tribunals -- will have to hold between March 29 and April 29, 2011.
However, in a bid to prevent the prevailing situation where electoral cases eat deep into the tenures of incumbents, the November 2010 date is being proposed to provide for six months of litigations in the hope that all petitions would have been dispensed with by the inauguration date.
This is a major recommendation of the Justice Muhammadu Uwais Electoral Reform Committee, whose report is being considered by the lawmakers currently reviewing the constitution.
The concensus on the change in date, Thisday learnt, cuts across board, and the difficult aspect of getting at least 24 state houses of assembly to pass the amendment is to be taken care of through the political clout of the governors in their respective states.
This is yet an indication that electoral reform may be the major focus of the current constitution review efforts, as other aspects such as state creation and fiscal federalism are considered too volatile to deal with now.
The litigation-before-inauguration proposal has been topical in the electoral debate.
For instance, the Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, spent three years - from 2003 to 2006 - pursuing his petition against Dr. Chris Ngige who was eventually unseated in March 2006. For this reason, Anambra governorship election will hold on February 6, 2010, whereas in other states the election was held on April 14, 2007.
Election petition in respect of Rivers State governorship filed by Accord Party (AP) is still pending at Appeal Court while the issues around the governorship of Imo are still to be resolved by the Appeal Court in the challenge mounted by All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate in the April 2007 election in the state, Chief Martin Agbaso.
In Yobe, Senator Usman Al-Bishir is now before the Supreme Court challenging his disqualification from contesting the 2007 governorship election on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), though the Court of Appeal dismissed the case even after the death of Governor Mamman Ali who ran for the election and won on the ANPP platform.
And the election tribunals are still working on petitions in respect of the governorship of Osun and Ekiti States.
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