The All Progressives Congress in Cross River State has threatened to sue Governor Ben Ayade for failing to constitute the board of the State Independent Electoral Commission ahead of the October local government election.
The Vice-Chairman of APC in the state’s Central Senatorial District, Mr. Cletus Obun, said in an interview in Calabar that the party had given the governor a 30-day ultimatum to constitute the CROSIEC board.
Obun said it was sad that with less than three months to the announcement for conduct of local government election, the governor had not deemed it necessary to constitute the board.
He said, “The Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission is expected to conduct election between August and November, unfortunately, in the hurry of Governor Ben Ayade to create small enclave for himself while a fundamental issue like local government election has been neglected.
“The constitution stipulates that elections are conducted 90 days before the expiration of the tenure of local government chairmen which is December. If it is so, it means election should be conducted around October while notice of election ought to come out in April.
“This is almost the middle of January and you do not have a commission, how do they prepare themselves? A budget has been passed for the election, so, there is no excuse why that election must not hold. We are giving the governor notice that in the next 30 days, if he is not ready, we will take him to court.
“The APC will take him to court to ensure that he abides with everything that the law says he should do under Section 7 of the Nigerian Constitution. In the history of Cross River State, we have always had elected officials at the local government councils. Therefore Governor Ayade should not drag the state backward through dictatorship by bringing interim members.”
But reacting to the complaint, the state Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. John Okon, said it was too early to make case for the local government election slated for the last quarter of the year.
Okon said Ayade was working on constituting befitting board members and urged the APC to be patient.
He said, “A board like CROSIEC is not something you rush to create. I believe the governor is working on it. It is too early to start making noise about the conduct of the local government election. Even in some many APC states, there had not been local government elections.”
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