Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

LP, APC worried about delay in Anambra council polls

By Leo Sobechi and Uzoma Nzeagwu, Awka
21 January 2016   |   12:02 am
The Labour Party (LP) in Anambra State has advised Governor Willie Obiano to urgently conduct local council polls to avoid a breakdown of law and order in the state.
Obiano

Obiano

• No fresh primaries for Anambra Central, Okonkwo insists
The Labour Party (LP) in Anambra State has advised Governor Willie Obiano to urgently conduct local council polls to avoid a breakdown of law and order in the state.

The state chairman of LP, Chief Luke Ezeanokwasi, who addressed newsmen in Awka, expressed worry that Obiano, who was a beneficiary of democratic process, is now plotting to truncate democracy at the grassroots level.

Ezeanokwasi called on Obiano to respect his campaign promises of continuity and ensure that all abandoned projects dotting the nooks and crannies of the state are completed.

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Anambra has threatened to take legal action against the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA)-led government in the state over plans to extent the tenure of council caretaker committees, describing it as undemocratic.

The Anambra State House of Assembly was said to have been considering the extension of the tenure of local council caretaker committees, whose tenure expires this month. The extension, it was learnt, would be for three months based on a request of Governor Obiano.

The state secretary of the APC, Mr Chuma Agupugo, said the party rejects the move, noting that there are no signs that the state electoral commission, ANSIEC, would conduct the polls soon, as members have not been properly constituted to function.

Agupugo’s reaction followed the expiration on Jan. 12 of the tenure of the elected local council executives in the state. The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose faction is recognized as the authentic faction by the Court of Appeal, in the Anambra Central Senatorial election, Senator Annie Okonkwo, has reminded political parties that participated in the 2015 general election that no fresh primary would be held for the rerun ordered by the court.

Okonkwo, who spoke to journalists against the background of planned fresh senatorial primary by the All Progressives Congress (APC), contended that what the Court of Appeal Enugu Division ruled was that the candidate of a faction of PDP was no duly nominated, adding that being the most recent judicial pronouncement on the matter, it precludes parties to start a fresh process of nominating candidates.

Insisting that the process is “illegal and unconstitutional” senator Okonkwo stressed that apart from the exclusion of the illegitimate candidate that participated in the March 28, 2015 election, all other political parties that participated in the election should maintain the status quo for the rerun election.

Senator Okonkwo said: “If parties go ahead to conduct fresh primaries in states where court ordered a rerun, they would be in infringement of electoral laws because INEC’s time for substitution of candidates expired last year.
“It would amount to illegality to allow PDP or APC to field fresh candidates for the re- run election in the Anambra Central senatorial district. The court did not ask political parties to conduct fresh primaries. The court only ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a rerun within 90 days.”

The senator remarked that if APC or any other political party goes ahead to ‎field a new candidate and wins the rerun, it would trigger further legal suits, stressing that those that may likely emerge would not be products of valid primary.

On the decision of APC to employ an affirmative primary to adopt Mrs. Sharon Ikeazor, Okonkwo declared that since Senator Chris Ngige, who is the original candidate was quoted to have declined further participation in the rerun; the party stands a chance of not fielding a candidate since the process had ended.

It would be recalled that a three-man panel of Appeal Court Judges headed by Justice A.H. Yahya had on December 7, 2015 nullified the March 28 election because the winner of the election, Ekwunife, was not validly nominated by her political party, (PDP) and ordered a rerun on or before 90 days of the judgment.

0 Comments