Some senators have their views on the proposed amendments INEC is seeking.

Blackmail Will Not Work, Senator David Mark, President of the Senate

“All this business of trying to make us look bad in the eyes of the public is unnecessary, it is uncalled for. It is an unnecessary psychological warfare by participants who just want to blackmail us.

“We will do what we think is the right thing and the best for this country and not to serve the interest of individuals or few people. We will not succumb to blackmail,” he said.

Senator Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy Senate President
“You may recall that the first Alteration to the Constitution provides that election should hold not earlier than 150 days before the end of tenure of office. With this, the 2011 election would have been held in the month of January. This would have given a gap of four months before the next occupants assumes office, and the aim was to give time for the tribunals to deal with cases of election petitions.

“However, the new set of alterations proposed in this Bill, is to ensure that elections are held not earlier than 90 days and not later than 30 days before the end of tenure of office. This leaves INEC with 60 days, March and April 2011 to conduct elections before the handover date and to ensure that the nation is not caught up with the seeming Constitutional and electoral quagmire occasioned by the inability of INEC to implement the lofty ideas and philosophy behind the provisions of the Constitution (First Alteration) Act.

“With this amendment, there will be a reinstatement of Governorship election tribunal which the first amendment abrogated. Appeals will go to Court of Appeal from this tribunal. Any party not satisfied with the decision of the Court of Appeal may further appeal to the Supreme Court. ”

My Fears, by Senator Chris Anyanwu
“Less than two months after the first amendment was done, we are back again, my worries is this, when we go through this process, will there not be issues tomorrow for another new date? I hope these are all the amendments that we will have to do concerning this election. If it is the timeline, that is giving INEC problems, we should remove it and give it to the institution responsible for election to fix it and give us credible election.”

What We Should Do, by Senator Ahmed Makarfi
“We should have in the Constitution that election should hold every four years, without any particular time so that in future we wont have to come back and say we want to amend the Constitution because of timeline.”