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Delayed Council Poll: PDP Threatens Mass Rally

By Gbenga Akinfenwa
25 October 2015   |   12:10 am
EXACTLY one year after the expiration of tenure of elected Local Government officials in Lagos State, the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed to mobilise other political parties, non-governmental organisations and civil societies to stage a serious mass rally to demand for the conduct of council poll.

pdp-logoEXACTLY one year after the expiration of tenure of elected Local Government officials in Lagos State, the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed to mobilise other political parties, non-governmental organisations and civil societies to stage a serious mass rally to demand for the conduct of council poll.

While noting that the All Progressives Congress government has no intention of conducting the election in the next six months, the party described the action as unconstitutional and a serious violation of the constitution.

It should be recalled that the tenure of the last council officials, who were voted into office on October 21, 2011, expired on October 29, 2014. But since January interim executive secretaries inaugurated by former governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola have been managing the affairs of the 20 local governments and 37 local council development ar eas (LCDAs).

In an exclusive interview with the Publicity Secretary of the party, Taofik Gani, he claimed that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and his party are withholding the election, in order to salvage their party’s image, especially at the grassroots.

“They want to use that to settle the acrimony arising from the pre-election rancor between former governor Babatunde Fashola faction and Ambode’s faction. They are also rushing to do some palliative developments, like grading of roads instead of actual rehabilitation of roads.

“They want to come up with such deceit. The electoral body, the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) is ready to conduct the poll, but the organisation is not funded and the House of Assembly that ought to check this act of unconstitutionality is just there, not doing anything. It is a serious violation of the Constitution for us to continue to have undemocratically elected local government officials manning the councils,” he said.

While noting that the complaint should not only be a PDP thing, Gani stated that it should be in the consciousness of Lagosians in particular, who are suffering in silence because they are being governed by people who they never voted for.

“There is no democracy at the grassroots. Apart from this media war, we would consider very strongly going to Court, but we don’t have faith in the Courts again because it is their judiciary, so we would mobilise other political parties, non-government organisations to stage a serious mass rally to demand for the conduct of the local government election.”

To buttress PDP’s claim, a member of the inner caucus of the APC confided in The Guardian that the party has fast-forwarded the election to June 2016. He stressed that by then the party believes that the acrimony within its ranks and file would have been resolved, adding that by then the new commissioners too would be able to influence their constituencies, to achieve good result at the poll.

A reliable source at LASIEC confirmed that there is no preparation yet for the polls.

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