By Okey Maduforo Awka
Ahead of the conduct of the September 28th local government election in Anambra state three major political parties on Thursday boycotted the stakeholders meeting convened by the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission ANSIEC.
This is coming as fears are being entertained that some political parties for the election may file a suits against the conduct of the election.
Among the parties that were absent at the stakeholders meeting include the All Progressives Congress APC, the People’s Democratic Party PDP and the Labor Party while the All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA and the Action Alliance AA and Social Democratic Party SDP were present at the function.
When contacted about the boycott the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress APC Chief Basil Ejidike said;
“You will hear from us after the meeting tomorrow. We are going to have a meeting of Inter Party Advisory Committee IPAC made up of all the political parties and we are working together”
“What they are planning to do is unacceptable to us the political parties. They have already failed from the beginning because there must be a level play ground for everybody”
“You cannot continue changing the goal post while the game is on . So you will hear from us after the meeting and it has to be a collective thing ” he said.
Chairman of the Action Alliance AA Sir Nobert Okoli lamented that ;
“The situation is not a welcome development and it is not surpose to be as such because the political parties are the owners of the election”
“You cannot conduct the election without the political parties and they have to be fully involved and they are not involved is a very bad signal to the coming election and it should be corrected ”
“For us in the Action Alliance AA we support every due process being carried out by ANSIEC but if they do anything on the contrary we as a party have our own actions to take” he said.
Also speaking the representative of the SDP Chairman Mr Vincent Chukwurah and also Chairmanship candidate for Awka South local government area,Prince Charles Ekwunife lamented that the date for the election is too sudden contending that ample time should have been given to Political Parties to prepare and nominate candidates for the election.
Meanwhile the All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA has concluded it’s primary elections and has nominated twenty one candidate local government chairmanship candidates and 326 Councillorship candidates for the September 28th election.
The candidates are incumbent members of the Transition Committees and it was confirmed that the party resolved to nominate the Chairmen and Councillors whose three month tenure would be expiring by September.
According to the Chairman of the party Chief Ifeatu Obi-Okoye;
“Our party has three provisions in our Constitution for the nomination of candidates and that includes through primary elections, affirmation and consensus ”
“You can also recall that recently we had a stakeholders election to nominate three names for the post of Chairman which the governor picked one out of the three as local government Chairmen so we held our primary election and nominated our candidates through consensus and they are now our candidates for the election” he said.
Speaking at the stakeholders meeting the Chairman of Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission ANSIEC Genevieve C Osakwe said ;
“The Commission which has been working tirelessly day and night , recognizes the importance of involving critical stakeholders in our discussions to address key issues that must be communicated to Anambra people in ensuring that the elections are free , fair and credible”
“My team and I believe that this meeting is crucial for us to gather your insights identify critical success factors and explore value – adding opinions that will help us achieve the objectives of the Commission ” she said.
