Katsina LG poll holds Q1 2022, Masari assures

Katsina State Government has concluded plans to conduct local council elections within the first quarter of next year.

In a chat with newsmen, yesterday, Governor Aminu Masari, said 70 per cent of the requirements for the poll was already.

The last time council poll was held in the state was over six years ago, during the administration of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Governor Ibrahim Shema.

But Masari, who became governor on the All Progressive Congress (APC) platform, sacked the local council officials in May 2015, citing alleged misappropriation of public funds.

The PDP then went to court and the Supreme Court finally decided the case months ago.

Even as the apex court did not order the dissolved officials to be reinstated, it instructed the state government to pay the sacked officials their accumulated entitlements.

Masari said a committee chaired by his Chief of Staff, Muntari Lawal, had been set up to work with stakeholders for the conduct of the election.

His words: “Seventy per cent of what is required for the election is on the ground, and we are hoping to conduct the election in the first quarter of next year.”

The delay in the conduct of the election, according to him, is due to the court case instituted by the PDP, as the government did not want to go ahead with the polls due to the case.

He said most of the sacked officials had been paid their entitlements, even as he dismissed criticisms from the PDP for the delay in the conduct of the election.