The lawmakers in a communiqué issued at the end of the conference in Akure, Ondo State capital, asked stakeholders to hasten the constitution amendment process.They also asked the Federal Government to ensure that the amendment include provisions that would guarantee the autonomy of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

They stressed the importance of financial autonomy for legislative arms of government, an area that has seen some state governors disagree with the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The legislators, in the communiqué, said electoral offences in the country should be criminalised, saying that human and institutional factors pose a threat to the conduct of credible elections in the country.

The meeting was boycotted by a National Commissioner and top directors of the Commission on the ground that the meeting was not necessary as the new INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, is expected to commence work latest by next week.THISDAY gathered that the workshop which would have gulped over N345 million flopped as the INEC officials stayed away.

Soyebi had raised technical committees on the review of voters’ register. On June 11, the secretary of the committee, Oladunjoye Abimbola, raised a memo summoning state administrative secretaries, Heads of Operations, and Heads of Information, Communi-cation and Technology (ICT) on how to update the nation’s voters’ register.

President, NBA, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN), affirmed this against the backdrop of claims that President Jonathan did not follow the Uwais recommendation before settling for Jega.

He said the President was guided by the Constitution in his choice of the new INEC chief.

Also, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of election monitoring and observation bodies, yesterday expressed serious doubts on Jega’s ability to give Nigeria a credible, free and fair election come 2011.

While the group attests to Jega’s personal integrity, honesty and sincerity of purpose, it is, however, worried over what the TMG called “landmine” allegedly set for him by the ruling class to fail.

For instance, the TMG observed that with barely six months into the 2011 general elections, no critical structure was on the ground to demonstrate government’s seriousness towards holding free, fair and credible polls.

Besides, the Electoral Monitoring Board has recommended that the Director of Operations, Mr. Okey Ndeche, be dropped from the team that will conduct the February 6 election, because he was named in the N250milion Ekiti poll rerun bribery.

INEC raised a committee, which was headed by the Deputy Secretary (Operations), AbdulRahman Madaki, after suspecting that the register may have been altered.

It was learnt that the Madaki Panel discovered that the suspicion was right.

AC had asked the court to restrain INEC from conducting rerun elections into the vacant legislative seats in the state without reviewing the voter register.

The court on December 3 granted leave to the plaintiff and directed that the leave should serve as a stay of action. The election was earlier slated for December 12.

Mr. Femi Falana (for AC) had explained that INEC failed to comply with Section 10 of the Electoral Act, which requires it to update the register .

Justice Katsina-Alu and Justice Ayo Salami were confirmed CJN and President of the Court of Appeal when they appeared for screening by the Senate.

Noting that the constitution gives the President the powers to appoint INEC chairman and members, Justice Katsina-Alu urged the senators to amend the provision if they felt it was wrong.

Delivering the judgment in Abuja, Justice Ayobode Olujimi Lokulo-Sodipe noted that the lower court ought to have heard the case when it was brought before it instead of striking it out. The court went further to pronounce that the claim by the Federal High Court that there was something impeding the hearing of the matter before it cannot hold water, adding that even after the election was conducted by INEC, the court would have gone ahead to hear and determine the matter.

The Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja, restrained him from parading himself as the standard-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 6, next year governorship election in Anambra State.

PDP was restrained from presenting Soludo as its candidate and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was barred from recognising him as the party’s flag bearer.

Justice Ayobode Lokulo-Sodipe made the orders while ruling on a motion challenging Soludo’s emergence as PDP’s candidate.

The motion was filed by three governorship aspirants – Valentine Ozigboli, Nkoli Imo and Ferdinand Okoye.

At a news conference in Akure, the state capital, a pressure group within the party under the aegis of Unity Advancement Forum (UAF) called for an election tribunal to probe the conduct of the election.

Chairman of the group, Chief Segun Adegoke, who was Special Adviser to fomer Governor Olusegun Agagu, also urged the police to prosecute those arrested during the election.

According to him, the two by-elections conducted on September 19 in Akure North and Akoko South-West/South-East should also be probed .

The tribunal, which is chaired by Mr. Justice Hamma Barka, also rejected the request of Oni’s counsel to have the hearing of the petition adjourned till January.

He said hearing would continue on Friday.

The tribunal is hearing the petition filed by Action Congress (AC) candidate Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who is challenging Oni’s return as the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).