From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Presidency has said that President Muhammadu Buhari does not deliberately delay assent to bills passed by the National Assembly..
The Senior Special Assistant( SSA) to President Muhammadu, on National Assembly Matters ( House of Representatives), Umaru El-Yakub, stated this, while speaking with journalists on Wednesday, in Abuja.
 El-Yakub explained that usually when the National Assembly transmits bills to the President, he gets inputs from Ministries,Department and Agencies (MDAs) on the merits or demerits of the proposed legislation, to decide whether or not to assent to it..
According to him,” We are a government that operates by the rules. We just mentioned the Electoral Act which is legislation that confers rights and responsibilities on the electoral process. That is the same with the constitutional amendment.
“We do have a constitution in this country that we operate and it gives the President 30 days to look at a bill passed by the National Assembly, scrutinize the bill and assent to it based on what is clear to him as benefit of those bill depending on the exigency of that moment.
“Within that period, it becomes law if he assent to it. If he decides to with hold assent, he could do it at the tail end because the law gives him that chance, or at the beginning depending on how soon he is able to make that assessment. It is not deliberate that he waits till that moment. .
“Whenever he gets these bills transmitted to him, he gets inputs from Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government and the aggregates of that forms the opinion of whether to sign or not. Sometimes, when he doesn’t, he writes back and say these are my reasons for with holding assent. “