True to expectations, and in keeping with the record already set by his colleagues in other states, Governor Charles Soludo’s All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, cleared all the 21 Local Council Chairmanship positions in last Saturday’s Election in Anambra State
The Source reports that over a decade after the last Local Government polls was held, the State on September 28, 2024, conducted another exercise in a bid to meet with the June 20, 2024 Supreme Court ruling on Council autonomy.
Announcing the results Sunday evening in Awka, the State capital, Genevieve Osakwe, the Chairman of the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission, ANSIEC, said that APGA also won all the Councilorship positions.
Osakwe, who is also a Magistrate in the State Judiciary, described the election which over 60% of eligible political parties boycotted as free and fair.
The Source reports that the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, All Progressive Congress, APC,
Labour Party, LP, had some weeks before the election, announced their withdrawal from the exercise.
They specifically and variously cited insincerity on the part of the umpire and the manipulative tendencies of the APGA led Anambra state Government as major reasons for shunning the polls.
The aggrieved political parties has also approached the court to challenge the exercise ,which they described as illegal.
The Labour party, in addition, filed a case of impersonation against the ANSIEC and the APGA-led administration in the State.
The Party alleged that the electoral umpire working in concert with the ruling APGA had listed some APGA members as LP contestants in the election at a time it was clear to all that the party was not interested in the exercise.
In all, the major political parties had argued that their participation at the polls would amount to conferring legitimacy on a manifestly flawed and highly compromised process.
Instructively, none of the opposition parties ,also, was present during the announcement of the result of the election at the ANSIEC headquarters.
Besides APGA’s agents and officials, no agents or representatives of other political parties were sighted at the venue of the result declaration.
That notwithstanding, the ANSIEC insists that the exercise was free, fair and credible.The Chairperson of the Commission also thumped up security agencies and the people for the peaceful nature of the polls.
“This is to affirm the result of the Chairmanship and Councilorship election held on September 28, 2024.
“The Commission carefully collated and analyzed the results to ensure that there were no mistakes.
“We ensured all scores and parties were announced at the polling units yesterday ( Saturday) . We are here today (Sunday) to affirm the results as recorded .
“The election held at all polling units across Anambra state on September 28 was free fair and credible” Osakwe stated.
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