Ambode should hold LG poll without further delay —Lagos PDP

Election ‘ll hold this year, APC assures

Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has urged Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to put in place without further delay, processes that will lead to the conduct of a free, fair and transparent local government election in the state, saying it will mobilise residents of Lagos, through civil society bodies, to force him to hold the poll at the expiration of a 21-day ultimatum it had since issued.

The party, it will be recalled, had issued the ultimatum last July 10 which would expire on July 31.

Addressing newsmen on Tuesday, at the party secretariat at Sogunle, Ikeja, PDP deputy chairman, Chief Shakiru Ola Apena, said the call became imperative as the status of the present occupants designated as Sole Administrators, did not exist in the constitution of the Federal Republic.

Apena, who spoke at a well-attended press conference by party executive members, however, asserted that the PDP was fully prepared in anticipation of the council poll, saying structures had already been put in place in all the 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) and 37 local Council Development Areas (LCDAs).

Reacting, spokesperson of the All Progressives Party (APC), Mr Joe Igbokwe, who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune on phone, assured that the state government would hold the election anytime this year, saying what the State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) was doing currently was to create new wards and polling units for ease of the exercise.

This was just as he lashed out at critics, who he said, were of the view that the exercise might not hold until next year,  adding that they (critics) could only talk while the government through LASIEC, would take the real action in terms of fixing the date for the exercise after new wards and polling units had been created.

“It (election) is going to hold but their own is to talk, but our own is to take the real action. As I speak to you now, we are creating new wards. So we need to finish all these before we fix our elections.

“We will create new wards, and we will now use them to create new polling units or polling stations. Like my area, I was in Agunbiade ward before I moved to another place, now that Agunbiade ward has been split into two. This is what is going on. These people don’t know what is going on so they continue to talk, talk and talk,” he said.