The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nasarawa State has announced plan to boycott the state’s local government election on November 2.
The main opposition party in the state in a communique issued at the end of its State Executive Committee (SEC) meeting in Lafia yesterday, hinged its decision on the registration fee of N1.5 million fixed by the State Independent Electoral Commission (NASIEC) for each candidate.
The party also frowned at the failure of the state government to amend the State Electoral Bill to allow the announcement of election results of councillorship positions at the ward level and that of the chairmanship at the local government headquarters respectively.
It said the decision of the state government to discountenance repeated calls for the review of the document amounted to an alleged attempt to manipulate the process in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The party in the communique signed by its secretary, Mr. Adamu Bako Ninga and publicity secretary, Mohammed Hamza respectively, said both the ruling party and the electoral empire displayed apparent insensitivity in the face of the prevailing economic challenges the state and the country were grappling with by fixing such an amount as tentative fee for nomination forms.
The communique reads in part: “Asking our people to pay N1.5m fixed by NASIEC as cost of candidate’s registration is not the issue, but the contending issue here is that the process is a clear indication that the APC-led government is insensitive to the economic hardship as well as to bar the common man from participation in the election.
“We are boycotting the forthcoming local council elections in Nasarawa State because NASIEC didn’t give the opposition parties substantial reasons to build confidence in the credibility, assurance of fairness and equity. The SEC meeting which was held with majority of members after an intensive deliberation on key issues of the moment, unanimously agreed that the inability of the Nasarawa State government to amend the State Electoral Bill to allow the announcement of election results of councillorship positions at the Ward level and that of the chairmanship at the Local Government headquarters respectively a pointer to elections manipulation, avenue for rigging.
“Since this has not been done, it then mean that it’s going to be business as usual for the APC to ambush other political parties with unimaginable electoral frauds.
“Therefore, PDP cannot afford to waste her precious time, energy or cheaply allow the innocent commoners to waste their energy and resources going into election that the results and the winners are already scripted.”
