Abia LG Polls: PDP Confirms Participation, APC Remains Mum

By Suleiman Anyalewechi

The main opposition party in Abia State, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, has signaled its intentions to fully participate in the November 2, 2024 Local Councils polls in the state.

The election to herald Local Government officials in line with the June 20,2024 Supreme Court ruling on Councils autonomy, is being organized under the supervision of the Labour Party, LP- led administration in the State.

The Source reports that after much prevarication, the Abia State Independent Electoral Commission, ABSIEC, last Friday, September 20, finally rolled out the timetable for the crucial election.

The electoral umpire on Saturday September, 21, held an interactive session with the political parties and other relevant stakeholders to further discuss the direction of the Polls.

Arising from the meeting, the Caretaker Chairman of the PDP in the state, Dr Alwell Asiforo Okere, on Friday September 27, confirmed that the party, which 24 years hold on Abia, was only broken during the 2023 General Election will be  fielding  candidates for the Council Election.

Dr Okere, who spoke at a PDP stakeholders meeting in Umuahia, the Abia state capital, noted that despite being ousted from the State’s seat of power, the Party still maintains  a towering influence in Abia.

According to him, the PDP, which is the majority party in the State House of Assembly with 12 lawmakers as against  LP’s 11, is still the beautiful bride and the party to beat in any election in the State.

He informed that the party’s nomination forms for  Chairmanship aspirants has been fixed at N200,000, while those for the Councilorship will pay N25,000.

Similarly, in a bid to encourage more women participation in the exercise, interested female aspirants will pay 50% of the nomination fees for any of the positions they are going for.

The Caretaker Chairman, whose main tenure as elected boss of Abia PDP elapsed in August this year, urged interested party members to visit the Party Secretariat to purchase both their expression of interest and nomination forms.

Dr Okere, however, called on the Commission to provide an a level playing ground for all parties and also to resist the temptation of succumbing to manipulative tendencies.

According to the  election timetable released by the  Prof. George Chima-led  ABSIEC, all political parties in the State, interested in participating at the polls, have been given between September 24, and October 2 to conclude their primaries and any other in-house selection processes for their candidates.

However, as at the time of reporting, the All Progressive Congress, APC, with one member at the State legislative body, was yet to make its intentions known.