Action Congress (AC), has called on all the 36 state branches of the party to, without delay, launch litigations against on-going plans for local government elections in their states.
They are to use as evidence, the discredited voters’ register compiled by the equally discredited Independent National Electoral Commission under Professor Maurice Iwu.” AC said. In a release, yesterday, in Abuja , National Secretary of the party, Dr Usman Bugaje, told party chairmen that the party understood the open admission by INEC that the register was incomplete, to mean that it was not a ready and proper document to be used for any further elections in the country.
“In addition, INEC had neither done any further work on the discredited register since the April elections, nor did it make any move to meet the statutory requirement of updating the register in readiness for the local government elections. It is also clear, that even if it was ready, the law requires the register to be displayed for a mandatory period, which again is not the case here.”
ugaje said the party is aware that in a number of states, the electoral commissions have been dissolved and replaced with new memberships, without regard to the statutory nature of their tenure.
In some other states, the state electoral commissions have introduced illegal charges and fees, and several other impediments that the law does not recognise. It is also clear, he said, that in view of what happened in the so-called council elections in Ebonyi State, where the ruling party, the PDP claimed to have won 100 per cent, it would be a mistake to assume that the PDP has learnt anything from the tragic incident they unleashed on the nation in April in the name of elections.
In the light of this serious shortcoming and a serious disregard of due process of law, the party is left with no option than to seek the intervention of the courts to put a stop to this open, contemptuous disregard of the law and the Constitution.”
1 response so far ↓
KOLA OLABIYI // November 2, 2007 at 12:47 pm |
Updating the voters register is an important ingredient for conducting a credible election in any democratic setting. I therefore agree with AC that the 36 state chapters should go court to stop this illegalityand total disrespect to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The case of Oyo state is even the worse, i challenge all DEMOCRATS to rise to the defense of the people of Oyo state because the former Governor of the state conducted the local government election and sworn in all the elected chairmen before ALAO-AKALA AND THE UNTOUCHABLE ADEDIBU terminated their tenure. I wonder why somebody who is a defendant in the case will still be thinking of conducting another election.
May God help us….