Anita Ogona
Labour Party has faulted the hasty amendment of electoral law in Anambra, as the Party has resolved to go to court and challenge the legality of what it described as selfish amendments to the state electoral law by the state House of Assembly which has been generating controversies trail the forthcoming local government election in Anambra State,
The House assembly had few days ago amended certain provisions of the electoral law after the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC), had announced date for the conduct of the poll.
Addressing a press conference in Awka on Friday after an expanded Exco meeting, the newly elected State executive of the party led by honourable Ugochukwu Emeh, condemned the speed with which the state House of Assembly amended the state electoral law to suit the machinations of the ruling party, just few weeks after the law was passed and assented to.
Flanked by other exco members, the state publicity Secretary of the party, Engineer Theo Egbe, who addressed the press conference, said the amendments were obnoxious, undemocratic and unacceptable.
“As much as the Anambra State House of Assembly did not make any budgetary provisions for the proposed council election, we are shocked and at a loss at the speed of amendments after amendments of the state electoral laws, extending even into the wee hours of the morning”. And after careful study of these amended electoral laws, we as a party resolved to approach the court to challenge the observed obnoxious clauses in the hastily amended laws”, he said.
The party noted that the state governor, who failed to hold local government election as promised, hurriedly assembled machineries for the conduct of the poll without any budgetary allocation, because of the fear of losing local government allocations from October 2024.
“Sadly, having failed to keep his campaign promise to conduct local government election within six months after swearing in, the governor and his defeated faction of APGA are not under intense pressure to conduct the local government election before October 2024 or lose the monthly local government fund allocations to a holding account as ruled by the Supreme Court”, Egbe said.
However, Egbe further noted that the Labour Party is disposed to participating in the September 28 local government polls and called on members of the party to prepare for the election while other modalities for participation are worked out.
The Anambra state chapter of the Labour Party saluted the party national leader, Peter Obi and the national working committee of the party led by the national Chairman, Julius Abure for the successful, peaceful and timely conclusion of ward, local government and state congresses of the party in the state.
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