Former chairmen of political parties in Enugu State under the platform of “Forum of Former State Chairmen of Political Parties (FOSCOPE)”, have called on the Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission (ENSIEC) to halt the local government council elections slated for October 5, this year.
In a statement signed by its chairman, Hon. Adonys Igwe and the secretary/director-general, Barrister John Nwobodo, the forum stated that if the local electoral body conducts the poll, it would fall short of the Electoral Act which stated that party primaries and submission of names of candidates for an election must be done not less than 180 days to the poll.
The group maintained that since primaries will end on August 19, according to the amended timetable instead of the earlier February 24, 2024, conducting the elections will amount to rascality and a waste of the state’s scarce resources.
“We are hereby stating without equivocation or vacillation that the primaries of the PDP held on August 12, 2024 for nomination of councillorship candidates and that held on August 14, 2024 for the nomination of chairmanship candidates are invalid, null and void. It is clear from the foregoing that the PDP is foreclosed from participating in the October 5, 2024 local government elections.
“Furthermore, we are calling on the Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission to jettison the idea of conducting local government elections in Enugu State on October 5, 2024 as doing so would amount to rascality, disregard for rule of law and sheer waste of tax-payers’ money.
“We call on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to release the voter register for Enugu State and the B-VAS machines to ENSIEC for purposes of conducting election on October 5, 2024. In the same vein, we call on the commissioner of police and relevant security and intelligence agencies not to deploy security for the election in order not to be collaborators in the subversion of the law,” the statement read.
