Enugu LG poll under threat as APC sues ENSIEC, INEC

From;  Madu Ezenoha,  Enugu

Barely one week to Enugu local government elections, the All Progressives Congress, APC, has dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the Enugu State Independent Electoral Commission, ENSIEC, to court.

The election is fixed for November 4 in the state.

Chairman of APC in the state,  Dr.  Ben Nwoye told journalists in Enugu at the weekend that the suit was filed Friday at the federal High court sitting in Enugu.

The suit has the state  chairman of APC, Dr. Nwoye, Okoye Hillary Monday and Philip Ogechukwu Eze as plaintiffs on behalf of other candidates; while the ENSIEC and INEC, were joined as 1st and 2nd defendants, respectively.

In a motion on notice brought pursuant to Order 26 & 28 of the Federal High Court Rules, 2009, the party is seeking “An order mandating the first respondent to publish the list of names of the 260 candidates for councilorship positions of various wards and 17 candidates for local government chairmen submitted to them by the applicants as their validly nominated candidates to contest the November 2017 Local Government/councilorship election pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.”

The party is equally asking for “An order restraining the 2nd respondent from releasing the voters’ registers of Enugu State to the 1st respondent for the purpose of conducting and organizing the chairmanship and councilorship elections in the local government areas of Enugu State until the names of the candidates presented by the applicants are included and published as candidates for the various area councils/wards they represent, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.”

“An order restraining the 1st respondent from conducting the local government chairmanship/councilorship elections without including and publishing the names of candidates submitted by the applicant to contest, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.”

The plaintiffs claimed that according to the law, they “submitted to the 1st respondent the list of her qualified and nominated candidates for the November 4th local government election in Enugu State as the umpire in the election.

“The first defendant without any powers under any known law verified, screened and purportedly disqualified candidates of the plaintiff without any reason.

“The first defendant without any reason failed and/or neglected to publish the voters’ register of voters in Enugu State 30 days before the election as required by the law.”

ENSIEC,  it will be recalled had earlier disqualified 73 candidates of APC,  made up of two chairmanship and 71 councillorship candidates,  but later reversed itself,  saying that those disqualified on the basis of non possession of tax clearance certificates can stand for the election.

However,  the list of those cleared after  initial disqualification was not published.

The state APC chairman,  Nwoye said that his party was suspicious of ENSIEC because majority of its members were card carrying members of the Peoples Democratic Party  (PDP) and were bent on favouring the party.

He said that his party joined INEC because it maintains the register of voters in the country and that it allegedly maintained willful blindness to ENSIEC’s illegalities.