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The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) has called for the conduct of all elections on the same day in 2011.
Ogbonnaya Onu, the National Chairman of the party, made the call in Abuja on Monday at a one-day public hearing on a bill for an Act to alter the provisions of the 1999 constitution after the first amendment.

“We in the ANPP therefore call for an amendment of the 2010 Electoral Act to reflect the conduct of all elections on the same day,” he said. “We believe that by so doing, we can determine the true will of the Nigerian people.”

The second amendment of the 2010 Electoral Act is aimed at shifting the date of the general elections, from January to possibly April, in line with requests from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The hearing was organised by the House of Representatives ad hoc committee on the review of the 1999 constitution.

According to Mr Onu, the popular feeling is that the subsisting order of elections will subvert the true desire of the people to elect their leaders during the forthcoming elections. “We in the new ANPP believe that if this problem of election dates is not addressed, it will work against the interest of Nigerians in the electoral process,” he said. “We need to ensure that only the choices of the people are declared winners of elections.”

He said that the conduct of free and fair elections in 2011 was a great challenge for all Nigerians, and urged the National Assembly to address indiscriminate defection by politicians during the second amendment. “Democracy and the rule of law must go hand in hand to ensure the credibility of our electoral process,” he said. “We cannot continue to use the provisions of freedom of association in our constitution to encourage and support what is clearly unprincipled. The challenge we face as a people is to rededicate ourselves to the strong need to work to ensure that our democracy endures in our polity.”