The Labour Party in Anambra State has rejected the publication of members of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and serving local Government Transition members as LP candidates for the forthcoming Anambra State Local Government election of Saturday 28th September 2024.
The party reaffirmed its position of non participation in the said election, describing it as charade, obnoxious and objectionable local government election.
Briefing newsmen in Awka, the Publicity Secretary of the party, Engr Theo Egbe said this strong stand of LP to ANSIEC and Ndi Anambra, was served as a suit in the court against the commission and the State House of Assembly on 28th of last month (August) and is still pending in the court.
“Kindly take note of the previously confirmed position of Labour Party, Anambra State Chapter that the illegally packaged and lawlessly commenced obnoxious LGA Council election being midwifed by the hastily conceived and ill prepared ANSIEC by Anambra State Government is not worthy of our participation and this LP position remains irrevocably unchanged.
“Our official letter to ANSIEC and copied to the Anambra State Commissioner of police, Anambra State Director of DSS and other relevant bodies, dated 9″ September, 2024, Labour Party remained unequivocal about our total lack of faith, trust and confidence in both ANSIEC and the shabby illegal process they adopted, for being at complete variance with due process and the Electoral Act, 2022.”
He said the party that had already sued ANSIEC, never sold nomination forms nor conducted any primary elections, and never submitted its register or any list of candidates to ANSIEC.
“A careful perusal of the commission’s list of these fangled Labour Party “candidates” reveals that the names belong to known members of the defeated, Soludo faction of APGA, including the name of a current APGA Transition Chairman, (Orumba North LGA) Mr. Nwafor Chinonso Charlesmary Casmir and that of both past and current Transition Councilors of APGA extraction.
“The Labour Party, Anambra State Chapter views this conduct of ANSIEC and Anambra State Government as a criminal assault on due process and a rape of the Electoral Laws of the land, as well as unwarranted provocation of the law abiding members of Labour Party at large.”
Engr Egbe noted that LP is diligently committed to the legal pursuit of dismantling the sham branded Anambra LGA Council election via the law courts.
According to him, the party, in good conscience, however appealed to ANSIEC and Anambra Government to reschedule the election to the nearest future in order to convey absolute legality and legitimacy to the impending government administration.
On his part, the LP State Secretary, Barr Okoli Akirika said in due course, the party will activate the law for security agencies to investigate the activities of ANSIEC to unravel the mystery surrounding the publication of candidates being attributed to labour party.
“During the 2023 election, we heard of unknown bishops. We have also been hearing of unknown gunmen, and today through ANSIEC, we are hearing of unknown candidates.
“For Local Government like Idemili North, Idemili South, Awka North, Awka South and Nnewi North, ANSIEC published a list showing that Labour Party purportedly sponsored chairmanship candidates without deputy chairmanship candidates contrary to their own law that for every chairmanship position, there must be a deputy.
“For purposes of clarity, the persons published as candidates of Labour Party are not our members, they were not sponsored by us, and we had already told you people that we are not part of the election.”
Also speaking, the State Chairman of Labour Party, Mr Emmanuel Emeh, said the chairman and secretary of the party did not sign the list brandished by ANSIEC thereby contradicting the Commission’s Law that said submission of list to ANSIEC should be signed by the state chairman and secretary.
“None of these candidates were authenticated by us. So they generated their own list and placed Labour Party on it”, so concluded LP State Chairman.
