Edo holds council election March 3

• Kwankwasiyya berates KASIEC for rejecting its candidates in Kano council poll

The Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) has scheduled March 3, 2018 for the conduct of election into the 18 local councils.A statement yesterday in Benin City by the EDSIEC’s chairman, Prof. Stanley Orobator, said the election timetable and guidelines shall be released at its office, after a meeting with all the registered political parties on Monday January 13, 2018.He said the parties are expected to conduct their primaries before the end of the month, while they commence campaigns from next month.

The Guardian leant that APC in the state had fixed N250, 000 as nomination form for the chairmanship aspirants, while those for councillorship would pay N50, 000.The state Secretary of the APC, Lawrence Okah, said: “We are already working hard for the elections because we are ready to consolidate on Governor Godwin Obaseki’s victory in the state.”

But the Publicity Secretary of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chris Nehikhare, said it was not aware of the development and therefore could not be planning on what it was not aware of.

Meanwhile, a political group, the Kwankwasiyya, has berated the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KASIEC) for rejecting its candidates in the council poll.A statement by its leader, Abdulsalam Aminu, accused KASIEC of meddling in the internal affairs of the state’s All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Kwankwasiyya group is loyal to former Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who is also a member of the APC. According to him, Umar Haruna Doguwa, who is the authentic chairman of the APC in the state, duly endorsed the list of its candidates.He expressed the group’s readiness to participate in the council poll scheduled to hold on February 10.

He disclosed that the candidates who belong to the Kwankwasiyya group were duly screened before submitting the list to the commission.Aminu told The Guardian yesterday,that KASIEC’s rejection of its list was mischievous, adding that it was not only partisan, but also a compromise on its constitutional mandate of conducting credible elections.

But, the KASIEC Chairman, Prof. Garba Ibrahim Sheka, insisted that the commission would only work with the list submitted to it by the faction led by Yahaya Karaye, who is the recognized APC chairman.

He said: “ We only accept the list of candidates from either the chairman or secretary of political parties. If aspirants come to the commission to buy intent form, we must confirm whether their names are on the list submitted by his party.

“It is only after that such confirmation that we give the necessary clearance to make payment through the bank. We closed the sale of forms since December 27, 2017. So we are dealing with the list submitted to us from the INEC office,” he said.