The controversial boss of INEC boasted in the Sun newspaper today that he cannot be sacked.Surprisingly rather than tell Nigerians the steps they are willing to take to rid the nation of the man who conducted the worst elections ever  , senators are speaking  tongue- in -cheek, hiding behind legalese.

It was the Chairman Senate Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission, Senator Isiaka Adeleke and eleven of his colleagues including  Senators Sati Gogwin, Grace Bent, Tawa Wada, Ikechukwu
Obiora, Osita Izunaso, Ayo Arise, Gyang Dantong, Joel Ikenya and Otaru Ohize who gave an insight into what the senators may be thinking of Iwu when they on Thursday ,February 26, 2009 dismissed calls for the removal of  the chairman of INEC.

Adeleke along with his  colleagues revealed their thought  at a Press Conference in the Senate in Abuja..  Specifically Adeleke said such calls have Constitutional implications because the power to
remove the National Chairman was vested in a 2/3 majority of the Senate.  Hear him “You will recall that in recent times, there have been numerous calls both in the print and the electronic media for the removal of the Chairman of the Independent National Commission (INEC).As the Chairman of the Committee overseeing the affairs of INEC and some of my colleagues thought we should come here to clarify certain issues regarding the appointment and how a person who is appointed to some of these Federal bodies can be removed.

He proceeded to read  section 157(1) of the Constitution. “Subject to the provisions of subsection (3) of this section, a person holding any of the offices to which this section applies may only be removed from that office by the President acting on an address supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate praying that he be so removed for inability to discharge the functions of the office (whether arising from infirmity of mind or body or any other cause) or for misconduct.”

Senator Ikechukwu Obiora was even more frontal in his urge to checkmate the anti -Iwu campaigns when he  said “Let us stop putting pressure on the President to remove Iwu because the President has no such powers. The powers are in the Senate''.He explained that ``the President would  only comply with an address supported by two-third majority of the Senate praying that a particular person to whom this section applies be so removed. That is one point I think I should quickly clarify.” He made it clear that  only the senate can remove him.But like Adeleke he stopped short of saying Iwu should in deed go ,despite the evident failure of the commission to hold a credible elections in 2007
According to the senator:“The Senate will have to convene and write an address supported by two-third majority praying the President to remove this person. We have heard various sections of the public asking the President to remove Iwu. We saw that of the NLC asking the President to remove Iwu. We have a constitutional democracy for goodness sake and this constitution is our grund norm. It is the basic law. It is our holy grail.  This is the order of the day. We can’t be seeking to maintain order while negating or denigrating the extant provisions of the constitution.” Hmmn!

But any hope that the senators may indeed be thinking of moving against Iwu was dashed when Senator Joy Emodi  spoke.Emodi  said she was a victim of electoral fraud at a time Iwu was not yet INEC boss. Interestingly, she added today that though she was not calling the National Chairman of INEC a saint, it would be wrong for people to impugn his integrity over issues which Iwu  had little
control over.Shocking defence in deed!