By Our Correspondent
Ahead of the Local Government and Councillorship elections in Ebonyi State, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed to boycott local government and councillorship elections, if Ebonyi State Independent Electoral Commission did not remove outrageous fees of candidates nomination forms.
The State chairman of the party Hon. Tochukwu Okorie Stated this on Sunday while briefing journalists on the outcome of the party’s chairmanship and councillorship primaries at the party Secretariat in Abakaliki, the State capital.
Recall that the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) had recently threatened to boycott the elections over the outrageous fees, said “PDP as a member of IPAC would not deviate from the council’s decision of boycotting the forthcoming local government elections if EBSIEC refuse to heed to their call.
“PDP is part of IPAC, just like APC is also part of IPAC. If IPAC said something, it was all the parties’ decision. Having said that, I think that it’s outrageous on the side of the nomination form for the candidates. One million Naira (N1m) for Local Government Chairmanship candidate and two hundred thousand Naira (N200,000) for the ward councillorship candidates are outrageous. I’m of the view that EBSIEC should review that,” he said.
According to Okorie, “Today we had primary elections across the wards and local government areas, for the forthcoming council elections, the EBSIEC organized elections. So, far so good, it has ended and we are collecting results.
Okorie, also called on the Ebonyi State Independent Electoral Commission to consider rescheduling the election as thirty days given is grossly inadequate for the exercise.
“The 30 days notice of the election, is grossly inadequate” and by way of appeal, I suggest that EBSIEC should consider shifting the elections”
“I know that candidates have emerged across the local government areas in the state. We have candidates in both local government Chairmanship and ward councillorship positions.”
Okorie said the party would raised alarm any time they see omission and action by EBSIEC that would jeopardize the credible conduct of the election, noting that the party would ensure its candidates emerged at the polls.
The Chairman admitted notwithstanding the crises in PDP, that “the PDP is the party to beat even if It’s one person remains in the party.” he said