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Ahead of the upcoming polls in Imo State, the Governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Senator Athan Achonu has warned against the conduct of the local government elections, stressing that it will heighten insecurity and cause crisis.
Director general of the Athan Achonu Campaign Organisation Engr Chime Nzeribe, who made the disclosure during a press briefing monitored by The Eastern Updates in Owerri, said Governor Uzodimma had over three years to conduct the elections but failed, adding that the state government lacked the capacity to conduct credible local government elections.
According to Nzeribe, the state is already involved in the process of electing a governor. He believes that holding local government elections will only worsen the insecurity and create more problems for the new governor when he assumes office.
He said the timing was wrong, sudden, and mere selection process saying “As a government which is tailor-made for election manipulation and mandate stealing, as it did in the February/March elections, the indecent haste to ‘select’ their followers as local government officials, is nothing but a ploy to recruit foot soldiers who will orchestrate the rigging of the governorship poll. We hereby call on them to be wary of Gov Uzodimma’s poisoned ‘selection’ hemlock’.
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‘In the almost four years it has been in the saddle it have received local government allocation in excess of N200b but as we speak it has not dropped a trip of sand in any of the twenty-seven councils of Imo State. As if that is not enough they can’t also account for over N700b state own allocation received over the same period’, Nzeribe said.
Further, Nzeribe said the excuse of insecurity and Covid-19 as reasons for the delay of the conduct of the local government polls by Uzodimma were not enough, adding that activities has since picked up after the pandemic.
He maintained that the composition of the Imo State Independent Electoral Commission (ISIEC) comprised of known politicians of the ruling party.
Nzeribe said ‘We leave it to Ndi Imo to ask how truly ‘independent’ that Commission made up of known lackeys of the ruling party in the state is’?
According to him, the sudden LG election will be the selection of people who are to work for the reelection of Uzodimma.
He maintained that Uzodimma was jolted to action because of Achonu’s repeated commitment to ensure credible local government system saying ‘Achonu has consistently promised that he will not only grant full and total financial autonomy to the twenty seven councils of the state when elected, but also ‘conduct the freest and fairest local government election in the history of the state.’ He has also vowed not to touch a dime of Local Government allocation.’
