Abia schedules LG election on Christmas Eve, candidates reject date

Aspirants for the Abia State LG elections have frowned at the Christmas Eve date scheduled for the bye-election, saying the period witnesses a lot of movements to villages, with people putting final touches to Christmas and New Year festivities.

The state’s Independent Electoral Commission (ABSIEC), recently announced that while the main poll will hold on Saturday 17 December 2016 and the results announced the next day being Sunday, a possible run-off would follow a day to Christmas Day, which is 24th December, popularly called Christmas Eve. Besides the run-off date, some aspirants also said they require more time to raise the prescribed fees.

The aspirants rejected the run-off date after a meeting by political parties and other stakeholders held with the Chairman of the Commission, Retired Justice Igbozurike Akomas, where he announced the proposed dates and other arrangements for the election.

But Justice Akomas said that the election “is in line with the provision of the Abia State Local Government Law of 2002, Subsection 154 (f) and (g), which empowers the Commission to prescribe fees to be deposited by the chairmanship and councillorship candidates.”

According to him, while chairmanship candidates will pay a fee of N500, 000 each and councillorship candidate N200, 000, there will be an additionally pay of N15, 000 as administrative fee directly into the Commission’s account.

He added that candidates for the Local government election are to be screened and cleared by security agencies and the state Board of Inland Revenue.