RESIDENTS of Anambra State are set to elect executives into their respective local government areas today, as voting exercise should kickstart in the later hours.
This is the first time that a local government election will be held after 11 years. The last election was held in 2013, under the administration of the former governor, Peter Obi.
Subsequently, successive administrations have managed the local government councils through the appointment of caretaker committees.
However, a recent judgement by the Supreme Court in July granted the nation’s 774 LGAs financial autonomy. The court also ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state government to hold onto or manage such allocations and directed the 774 LGAs to commence managing their funds.
Going by this judgment, many states like Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Ekiti and others, have begun to conduct elections scrapping the institutional caretaker committees to allow voters to decide their local government leader.
In Anambra, for instance, the incumbent governor, Charles Soludo, upon assumption of office in 202, appointed committee chairmen into the 21 LGAs until the Supreme Court decision outlawed the practice.
Pre-election chaos
In a build-up to the election, Soludo announced that eight political parties would be participating in the election; but this was dismissed by the commissioner for information and logistics at the State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC), Tony Nnalue, who claimed not to have a clear figure on the number of participating political parties.
Some opposition parties also argued that today, September 28, was too short to allow for adequate preparation, including primaries, sales of forms and campaigns as some participating parties do not have candidates contesting across all the local government areas.
While the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the state, has dismissed several concerns raised by other political parties, insisting that there was sufficient preparation for the electoral exercise, other parties, like the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Labour Party (LP), are threatening legal action.
Meanwhile, APGA has expressed confidence in winning the election even as Soludo maintains that his party would win all the 21 local government chairmanship seats and 326 councillor positions.
Kehinde Ogunyale tells stories by using data to hold power into account. You can send him a mail at [email protected] (jameskennyogunyale@gmail) or Twitter: Prof_KennyJames